ENVIRONMENTAL ADULT EDUCATION PROGRAMMES FOR ADULT FARMERS AND FISHER-FOLKS FOR OCCUPATIONAL ENHANCEMENT IN OGBA/EGBEMA/NDONI LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF RIVERS STATE

Authour: DR. I. I. OHIA
Abstract
Education is an important tool for social change, national integration and development. The extent to
which these goals are achieved in any society or community depends largely on the quality of
education provided for the citizenry, including the adult farmers and fisherfolks. One of the goals of
National Policy on Education in Nigeria is that educational activities shall be centered on the learner
for maximum self-development and self-fulfillment and that effort shall be made to relate education
to overall community needs. Education is always seen as the ability to read and write. However,
education at this point hasgone beyond reading and writing. Environmental education is no doubt a
relevant instrumentfor solving environmental problems. Illiteracy is likened to darkness, ignorance
and dreadful disease; it stunts growth and impedes progress. The adult farmers and fisherfolks in
Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni LGA of Rivers State are majorly stark-illiterates, semi-illiterates or school-
dropouts who form part of the illiterate members of the public and are those poorest who live in the
rural communities and exploit the environment and its resources for life sustenance. As a result of
this, the environment has been abused by these individuals or by external factors; because they lack
the capability, skills, understanding to create and utilize theenvironment sustainably and wisely. This
also has affected their farming and fishing occupations very drastically. In line with this,
environmental adult education programmes have been broadly outlined in this study to enable adult
farmers and fisherfolks in Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni LGA of Rivers State acquire needed environmental
skills, knowledge, understanding and capabilities that would move them to take action and overcome
environmental challenges at a given time and improve on their livelihood occupations for more and
enrich their productivity.
Keywords: environment, environmental adult education, ecological,fisherfolks, predestines.


Introduction
Environment is a broad and comprehensive term denoting all thatsurrounds human, air,water, solid and
light. It is a condition or circumstance that affects living beings. Environmentcould be said to consist of
all external factors and forces with which one interacts from time of conception to time of death on
earth. It also includes the physical, chemical, biological, psychological and socio-cultural dimensions
and indeed everything that makes up the contextin which the individual lives (Odure-Mensah, 1992).
The environment has been traditionallyregarded as a reservoir of unlimited resources to be exploited
and managed for human purposes. This human-centered perception of the environment has been
blamed for centuries of environmental destruction (Encyclopedia Britannica Online, 2021, Oduro-
Mensah, 1992). This human-centered perception of the environment was blamed because it led to the
development models which address growth at the cost of environmental conservation resultingin global
degradation of resources such as soil, land, forest and water which are regarded as basic human
requirements for human survival. The degradation of environmental resources results in the
contemporary global environmental problems such as climate change, global warming, acid rain,
ozone layer depletion, pollution, greenhouse effect, erosion, desertification,biodiversity loss, etc.
The solutions to these problems were being sought individually by different countriesand regions of…


About the Authour: Dr. I.I. Ohia, Department of Adult and Non-Formal Education, Federal College of Education (T), P.M.B.11,Omoku,
Rivers State.

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