MEANING AND IMPORTANCE OF CIVIC EDUCATION IN OUR NIGERIA CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY. published by EGUNJOBI SEGUN SAMUEL.

civic education is generally understood as the formation of civic knowledge,  skills, and dispositions for effective democratic participation (Democratic Governance Group,2004). civic education is defined as a subject that studies how man (citizen) Could become a good ,disciplined, and quality citizen in the society. Man lives in the society and every society has codes, norms, etiquettes that guide man’s relationship with the society.Civic education includes studying man’s values, his duties and obligations to the society. It encourages citizens to know their rights, the limits of their right and discourages those behaviors and characters that cause troubles in the society. Nigeria is a country with many tribes and religions. Each tribe has its own cultures and ways of life. Ittherefore, possible to have, sometimes clash of opinions, religious crises. In the midst of these differences in opinions religious doctrines and cultural artifacts, civic education attempts to find the similarities, emphasizes those ones that do not clash and unites the nations into one entity. It those promotes unity in diversity. In other word it aimed at inculcating in the students the values, cultures, ideas, ethics, knowledge, plans, and activities which help them to live as one in spite of differences. It is a subject designed to promote the sense of patriotism, statesmanship, tolerance and other national ethics and values. Civic Education in a democracy is education in self government. Democratic self government means that citizens are actively involved in their own governance; they do not just passively accept the dictums of others (Aristotle,340 BC) opined that the ideals of democracy are most completely realized when every member of the political community shares in its governance. Members of the political community are its citizens, hence citizenship in a democracy is membership in the body politic. Membership implies participation, but not participation for participation’s sake. Citizen participation in a democratic society must be based on informed, critical reflection, and on the understanding and acceptance of the rights and responsibilities that go with that membership. Within a given political or ethical tradition, civic can refer to educating the citizens. Civic education in a democratic society most assuredly needs to be concerned with promoting understanding of the ideals of democracy and a reasoned commitment to the values and principles of democracy.
The history of civics dates back to the earliest theories of civics by Confucius in ancient China and by Plato in ancient Greece. In China along with Confucianism developed the tradition of Legalism. These traditions in the East and in the West developed to an extent differently, therefore, with bringing in the past different concepts of citizens’ rights and the application of justice , together with different ethics in public life. This was mainly valid before the translation of the Western legal tradition to Chinese which started in 1839, after which influence by Western tradition to China, with periods of restoration of traditional Chinese law and influence by Soviet law ; specific is the common ordinary language used in Chinese laws which has a significant educational role.            The ancient Greek city state or polis on the other hand was thought to be an educational community, expressed by the Greek term paideia . The purpose of political—that is civic or city—life was the self-development of the citizens. This meant more than just education, which is how paideia is usually translated. Education for the Greeks involved a deeply formative and life-long process whose goal was for each person to be an asset to his friends, to his family, and, most important, to the polis. Becoming such an asset necessitated internalizing and living up to the highest ethical ideals of the community. According to Plato education should be designed to produce the desire to become “perfect citizens” those calling for civic education. In Nigeria, it should be noted that civic education has already in place before the advent of colonialmasters.During the pre-colonial era, Nigeria wasn’t together as it was made up of different sections of people living with their own tradition, beliefs, norms, values, customs, cultures, and behavior both in different parts and places. Before the 1914 amalgamation took place, Nigeria had an existing traditional system which had no form of western education but it was made up of an informal type of education in which training for effective citizenship, aspects of civic responsibility were taught in different tribes of people scattered across the country. The children formed of age grades as they were taught on their social responsibilities and the youths were taught of popular and political participation.
In the traditional Nigerian society, a lot of parents wanted their children to be productive and helpful, they saw to it, also want their children to undergo a kind of training which will lay the foundation of leadership in the lives of their children Such training enables the child to acquire skills which will make their children be accepted in the society and make them acquaint and assimilate with the right values that will make them to function well in the society. With the arrival of the british colonialists they recognized that the noble values of honesty, obedience, hard work, tolerance and faith are germane to stabilising national life and upheld same for determining the development and progress of a nation. Such values regulate the life of a nation and project good image for the country.
They, therefore, formerly introduced civic education to teach citizens the virtues of good citizenships, particularly, the values of obedience, humility and submission to constituted authority.
(Adaralegbe,1994) recognized the important of civic education when he recommended that, civic education aimed atdeveloping and changing the students to become aware of their rights, the limits of their rights and the rights of others as well as make them respect the right of others. The study of civic education is very important in the life of growing child (student) and in the life of adult citizens. It is a subject that leaves indelible positive mark in a human person and makes the person realize not only the essence of life itself but alsowhy citizen must live well in the society. without civic education in Nigeria, a lot of people may not be politically aware and make it impossible for them to understand what is happening in their society, thereafter they become segregated and separated from whatever is happening in the country.
Civic education has made it possible for people to know their rights, their obligations and their duties under the law. The youth of a nation are its real strength of that nation.They are the pillars of the nation.They should be well educated formally and informally to be able to foster peace, progress and development in the country. The much needed peace in the land is possible when the youth acquired adequate civil education.
Research suggests that high quality civic education is not only effective at promoting the development of good character ,but a promising approach to the prevention of a wide range of contemporary problems. These problems include aggressive behavior, academic under achievement and school failure,precocious sexual activities among others. From the policy perspective, this suggests that an effective civic education program may be a more cost- approach to increasing learning, fostering interpersonal relationship ,preventing a variety of social problems than the implementation of multiples,more specific school-basesd programs aimed at influencing particular behavioural outcomes. (Adenipekun,2010). There is anincreasing evidence that civic education programs focused on the broader goal of promoting the overall positive development of youth are at least as effective as more specific programs aimed at preventing particular negative behaviors. In additionto reducing the risk of involvement in negative behaviours, civic education has the additional benefits of helping youth to developpositive personal and social attitudes and skills that will help them to lead satisfying and productive lives, and to becoming active and effective citizens in our Democratic society.
Civic education therefore goes beyond mere knowledge provision in schools but delves into the formation of functional democratic citizens and personality development (Youniss, 2011).