The Training and Pedagogical Orientation of Aesthetic Learning Educators in Promoting or Impeding the Program in Nigeria’s Basic Education

Abstract

This paper argues that the training and pedagogical orientation of aesthetic educators in the primary and secondary levels of Nigerian education could be one strong factor that impedes the effective teaching and learning of aesthetic enhancing subjects in Nigeria. The qualitative methodologies of philosophical and documentary analysis vide: language and logical analysis; argument by analogy; and deductions and inferences there from were used to appraise the issues and arguments of the paper. It is the paper‟s observation that many aesthetic educators because of their lack of professional exposure to requisite pedagogical principles for the subjects often inadvertently create apathy among their students for the subjects. By this type of impedance, students develop aversion towards aesthetic learning at this fundamental and critical stage of their educational development. This has consequently led to low level of enrolment of aesthetic enhancing subjects at various certificate examinations in the country. The resultant effect of this is that students often come out of the basic level of Nigerian education as aesthetic illiterates. To help reverse this dismal trend, it is recommended that the teacher-education programs for the primary and secondary levels of schooling will need a serious overhaul. This is to meet up with the challenges of aesthetic learning and therefore develop and sustain the interests of the students.