Civic Education Lesson: Meaning of Civic Education

Civil education is simply the type of education that help its citizens to understand the government of our land, its works, as well as our rights and duties as members belonging to the society. Every nation have a government that works to make sure that there is law and order in the society.

As citizens there are things we expect the government to do for us so as to be happy, stay alive and have a sense of belonging, these things are called rights. There are things we are also expeccted to do in other to help the government to perform their functions well, and these things are called duties.

Why The Need For Civic Education

There are important reasons every societies need civic education. For this lesson, two reasons will be mention, and they are:

• To enable the government of the land to serve its citizens well by making provision for good road network, clean drinking water, health care facilities and other good things of life that will contribute in helping the citizens to live hapily and in peace.
  
  Good road network
  
  Healthcare facility

• To enable the citizens know their civic rights and responsibilities/duties by taking proper care of what the government provides as well as behaving in an orderly manner.

From the two reasons above, it becomes clear that everyone in the society needs the knowledge of civic education for one major reason, which is; civic education enables both and the citizens to behave in the right and correct manner as they go about performing their duties in the society for the general good of all.

Advantages of Civic Education

There are many advantages of Civic Education, some are as follows:

• it enables the government to perform their duties of protecting the lives abd properties of the citizens in the society and the country at large,

• it create the conciousness of tax paying in the citizens,
  
  People paying tax

• it teaches the citizens how to accord redpect to one another in the society,

• it enables the citizens to exercise their civic right of voting at the election thereby choosing the leaders of the choice,
  
  Orderly voting

• it stimulates and motivates the respect of national constitution in the people

• it teaches citizens to respect and care for the national tothem such as the currency, national flag as well as the coat if arms,

• it teaches the citizen to be patriotic to their nation,

• it teaches and help the citizenry to be more responsible and responsive citizens,

• helps the citizens to know and understand how its government works.
  

Ways of Learning About Civic Education

The following are the ways to learn Civic Education:

1. Family: The family which is the basic unit of the society teaches civic education to its members by showing good and practical examples, giving direct instructions, teach the younger one the proper manners of behaviour which is accepted in the society. All adult members of the families including the parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles, brothers and sisters join hands in educating the younger ones.
   
   Parent teaching the child

2. School: As a center for teachimg and learning in the society, the schools provides civic education learning opportunities for the learners whereby the teachers provides the pupils with the basic information about their society, its history, constitution, goals and aspirations, the benefits of good citizenship and the effects of bad citizenship.

3. Religious Institutions: The churches, mosques and the shrines are places of religions where people learn how to become good citizens of the society by veing God-fearing individuals. The religious leaders such as the priests, imams and shrine heads teach their followers about the benefits of living in peace with one another in the society, and also performing their civic duties. These religious activities have helped in creating a more peaceful and orderly society.

4. Communal activities: These activities are carried out in the societies to help people know and show that they are one and united, such as; a new yam festival. The participation in these activities that includes ceremonies and festival is a way of enabling participants to learn other things about their societies as well as the benefits of living as brothers and sisters. For instance, taking part in a burial ceremony is a way to show love to the bereaved family members, and also learn how the ceremony is cinducted.

5. Age Grades: These are the associations of citizens or people who are members of a certain age groups in fhe society. They come together to help people in the society by caring out some good work like providing pipe-borne water for the community. The members of these age groups do comes from different families and cultural backgrounds, with different ideas. By coming togethers, they learn a lot from each other and therefore influences one another for good.

6. Social Groups and Clubs: The social groups and clubs is another way go learn about civic education and also perform their civic duties in the communities. They encourage members to behave in ways that is acceptable within the society.

Exercises
What have you learn in the lesson, try if you can remember.

1. How do you define civic education?
2. Explain major reason for civic education.
3. Mention ways of kearning civic education apart from the above mentioned ones.

Conclusion
That is the end of the lesson presented in this post. I believe you have learned something in this lesson.