Introduction
Over the past decades, Nigeria has faced frequent political instability. This political unrest has among others generated negative effects on the education system. It has suffered from a shortage of material and human resources; e.g. a lack of qualified teachers and brain drain from the public sector. The government of Nigeria therefore declared education as one of its priorities and has been working on the education system to provide access to all levels of education and improve the quality and efficiency of the entire system. The education policy in Nigeria is based on the National Policy on Education (NPE), which was last revised in 2013. In 1999 the introduction of Universal Basic Education within NPE resulted in free and compulsory education for the first 9 years, which comprised primary and junior secondary education. Since 2013 1 year of pre-primary education was made compulsory as well, hence making the first 10 years of education compulsory. This concerns children aged 5 to 15. Pre-Primary, Primary and Junior Secondary Education are jointly referred to as Basic Education.
There are various ways to categorize different types of education. The categorization depends on your standpoint. If you choose to categorize it by educational institutions, you get preschool, primary, secondary and tertiary (higher) education. If you go by goals (what people are going to use their education for), you get government (otherwise known as conveyor belt), professional and leadership education. Some people also split education as a whole into traditional, liberal (or progressive) and transformative education.
There are plenty of other classifications out there in the world. However, the most popular classification is the division of education into formal, informal and non-formal education.
a. Formal education ;Formal education is a formal and systematic approach to education. We all encounter this type of education in schools, universities and other institutions in the education system. Formal education has an end goal. Each educational institution has its own purpose. Education is received through direct instructions, tuition and schooling.It has a time frame and strict regulations. This means that each educational institution has limited time to teach you a set amount of things. It cannot be changed or prolonged. For example, if secondary school lasts six years, you cannot stretch it into seven. However, it works backwards: you can test out and shrink it to five years if you are very intelligent.
b. Informal education:Somewhat similar to the hidden curriculum, informal education also happens outside of the structured curriculum. In other words, informal education is the process through which a person gains knowledge outside of the strict confinements of formal education.
c. Non-formal education:It refers to educational practices that are not a part of the formal or informal education. To make it clear, any courses or programs that take place outside of schools, universities and other educational institutions, belong to the realm of non-formal learning.
References
2. Akinpelu, J. A. (2005). Essays in Philosophy and Education. Lagos: Stirling-Horden Publishers (Nig.) Ltd.
4. Babarinde, K., &Farayola, J. A. (2005). Kantain Moral Test for Deregulating Education in Developing Societies. Nigerian Journal of Educational Philosophy, 12, 8-13.
5.Aminu, Jibril (1990). “Education in Nigeria: Overcoming Adversity”. Journal of Education Finance. 15 (4): 581–586.
6. Abdullahi, Danjuma; Abdullah, John (June 2014). “The Political Will and Quality Basic Education in Nigeria” (PDF). Journal of Power, Politics, and Governance. American Research Institute for Policy Development. 2 (2): 75–100.
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