Music education in Nigeria, 1842 - 2001 : policy and content evaluation, towards a new dispensation

Abstract

This study traces the development of music education in Nigeria from its origins to the present day and clarifies how certain ideas and practices in Nigerian music education have originated. The study includes the discussions of the historical roots of modern music studies as based on indigenous African philosophy of education, later influenced by Islam and Islamic philosophy of education and Western systems of music education. The thesis looks historically and analytically at some problems of music education policy implementation and their implications or consequences (intended and unintended). Working from a postcolonial discursive perspective, the study narrates the story of Nigeria’s colonial encounters in a way that gives prominence to issues of educational policies and music curricula content that have, to date, been kept on the periphery of the education debate. This study examines the postcolonial Nigerian governments’ attempts to promote African cultures and traditions and efforts to expand as well as reform the education sector to reflect the Nigerian heritage and culture. The efforts to expand have outstripped the efforts to reform The efforts to reform the modern educational enterprise have led to the emergence of National Policy on Education, the Cultural Policy for Nigeria, the central control of education, and the provision of national music curricula. This study investigates the development of music education, policies and curricula since Nigeria’s independence in 1960, examines its current states and concludes that the attainment of independence has done little to erase the footprints of colonial music education ideology in Nigeria. Following an introduction to the music profession in Nigeria, the study provides an overview of the changes to tertiary music education since 1961 and analyses major issues currently faced by Nigerian tertiary music educators and scholars including: a shortage of qualified music academics, inappropriateness of imported music curriculum to the socio-cultural peculiarities of the Nigerian society, the unfit marriage of academic teaching and professional training in the music curricula, inability to produce realistic music teachers, policy makers, music education administrators, and learning texts, inadequate music research, and insensitivity to needs of the labour market. The study finds out that Nigeria has a rich musical heritage which includes the indigenous African, Afro-Islamic and Euro-American music. She has viable indigenous African philosophy, modes, and models of music education which is capable of imparting the modern African person with the human values and theoretical imperatives that can make the modern Nigerian person practice music in the modern global context. This legacy, which should empower the modern Nigerian person educationally to demonstrate national identity and mental authority locally and globally, is however, being repressed in schools and colleges curricula. Nigeria continues to struggle with music curricula that were laid down by colonial regime in the past but still continues to govern the development of musical life of Nigerian people. It is the finding of this study based on the analytical perspectives it adopts that the National University Commission (NUC) music curriculum content does not measure up with the criteria of validity, significance, interest, learnability, utility, contemporariness, relevance and consistence with social realities. The analysis of the curriculum content with Holmes (1981) theories also reveals that it is essentialism, encyclopaedic and less pragmatic in orientation while its objectives are more subject-centred than society-centred and student-centred. The study obtains evidence from observation of about 100 music lessons in ten tertiary departments of music, a tracer study of 400 music graduates, 105 students’ evaluation of institutional resources, and 28 practitioners’ and 22 academics’ (50) rating of capabilities they considered essential in a music graduate. It sources further evidence from 15 employers’ of music graduates who identified some strengths and weaknesses of music graduates they employed. From an evaluation of this evidence, the quality of the present tertiary music curriculum is judged to be generally poor and uninspiring. The study posits that tertiary music education in Nigeria needs a fundamental improvement. Based on its findings, the over-riding recommendations of the study are that all aspects of music education in Nigeria should be indigenous music research-based, indigenous culture-sourced and continuously evaluated to insure that music education programmes in Nigeria are as effective as possible in the context of Nigerian experiences and aspirations as with Nigerian students and other shareholders. It further recommends that music educators must adapt both music curricula and methods to the cultural backgrounds and needs of a changing Nigeria’s student population.