THE IMPACT OF JOS CRISIS ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF GEOGRAPHY CURRICULUM

ABSTRACT

The educational system has suered setback as a result of struggles between individuals and groups seeking for political or religious fulfillment. It was for this reason that prompted the researcher to investigate ‘the impacts of Jos crisis on the implementation of Geography curriculum in Jos south LGA’. Two research questions and two null hypothesis were formulated while a survey design was adopted for the study where students of geography where sampled out from seven (7) Senior Secondary Schools within Jos south Local Government Area. The major instrument used for the collection of data was a structured questionnaire which was divided into part ‘A’ and ‘B’ respectively in order to answer the research questions. The questionnaires are made up of five (5) point rating where the respondents indicate their response by ticking. Oral interview was also conducted by the researcher and the result was compared with the responses in the questionnaires.

The statistical tool employed by researcher is the simple mean and Chi-square in testing the two hypotheses. In the hypothesis testing, result showed that the first hypothesis was accepted while the second hypothesis was rejected. Findings show that crises prevent students from school, some mission schools were burnt down during the crises and imposition of curfew by the government paralyzed school activities among others. Following the findings therefore, the recommendations include; the government should do everything possible to ensure peace reigns in the society and religious institutions should watch against instigative activities as the structures of the society including education are at the receiving end. It was therefore concluded that Jos crises had significant impact on the performance of geography students in Jos south LGA but it had no significant impact on the implementation of the geography curriculum based on this study.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The entire society is built on different functional structures which interdependent on one another. These structures include the educational structure, economic structure, political structure among others. Community settlement is essential for human survival and the various interactions are bound to give rise to conflicts (Crises) because no group of individuals or society is an island. Conflicts do occur for it is an inevitable aspect of life but it needs to be controlled. Conflict can be seen as a violent situation in which groups of people or states are involved in serious disagreement or argument due to opposing ideas, feelings, opinions or wishes. In this regard therefore, when conflict occurs, it creates either positive or negative results (impacts) on the structure of the society. The Jos crisis dates back since 2001 where violence erupted in Jos city, the capital of Plateau state in Nigeria’s middle Belt Region. The ostensible dispute is over the “right of the indigene Berom/Anaguta/Afizere (BAA) group and the rival claims of the Hausa Fulani settlers to land, power and resources because the settlers are almost entirely Muslims and the indigenous people are predominantly Christians.

Struggle over land ownership, economic resources and political control tends to be expressed not just in ethnic but also religious terms and the dispute is compounded by the fact that among the settlers groups, only the Hausa/Fulani claim proprietary of Jos. Since the end of 2010, security has further deteriorated in Jos because of terror attacks and suicide bombing against churches and security targets by suspected militants of Boko-Haram, the Islamic group and therefore, there have been difficulties in the smooth running of schools. The school curriculum is simply seen as “everything that happens in school including the subjects, content, methods, time and evaluation among others. The curriculum needs to be implemented effectively as planned for the realization of set objectives. Geography is one of the subjects in secondary schools in which its multi-faceted areas are systematically planned for effective implementation by subject teachers. A student performance is determined by the level of achievement of the set objectives. Student performance objective is a specific statement about what a student should be able to do as a result instruction. In most cases, that would be a short period of instruction and would involve student completing some simple task “correctly”. Whatever the task (as specified in the objective) it must be something that must be evaluated by observing the student or having the students respond to a test question. Students learn more quickly and more effectively when they are told in advance exactly what they are expected to be able to do as a result of instruction. The impact of the Jos crisis led to serious tension and creating fear among people including school children and teachers thereby paralyzing school activities. Also, the imposition of 24-hours curfew by the State Governor brought school programs to a halt. Suffice it to say therefore, that the implementation of the geography curriculum suffered serious setbacks as a result of the crisis and it’s to this respect that the researcher took this study to find out the impact of Jos crisis on the implementation of geography’s curriculum in Jos south.