Pragmatising the Approach to Teaching Of Arabic and Islamic Studies. A 21st Century Requirement for Effective Delivery (PDF)

Academic Paper from the year 2022 in the subject Guidebooks - School, Education, Pedagogy, grade: 5.0, , course: Arabic and Islamic Studies, language: English, abstract: Previous studies have dwelled extensively on the problems facing Arabic and Islamic education in Nigeria. Such problems as documented by literature include lack of unified syllabus, inadequate qualified teachers, unavailability of relevant textbooks and Government's negative disposition to the subjects. As apt as these problems are, it is axiomatic to note that that a wrong approach to teaching the subjects is a fundamentally great impediment to effective and result-oriented delivery as far as the teaching of the subjects is concerned.

This is premised on the fact that irrespective of provisions made to address major problems militating against the survival of Arabic and Islamic Studies among other teaching subjects at all levels, the tendency for the subjects to remain backward and be treated with inferiority will still be there if a proper and pragmatic approach to teaching them are not institutionalized. It is on this note that this paper set out to examine the best approach to teaching the two subjects in the 21st Century. This study therefore espoused some wrong approaches employed in teaching the subjects with a view to ensuring a paradigm shift in order to achieve a better result from the teacher-student relationships otherwise known as education.

The paper, as a matter of background, made a deliberate attempt to exhume the history of Arabic and Islamic Studies in the educational sojourn of Nigeria. In the process, the travail as well as the fortune that characterised the emergence of the twin subjects was revealed. In our assessment of the situation, it could be adjudged as a natural birth from "grass" and growth to "grace" as the subjects stand today. New approaches were consequently suggested as a way to "right" the "wrong" in terms of teaching methodologies and hence pragmatising the old techniques as suggested by the topic of the paper. Though the study focused majorly on Arabic and Islamic Studies at the Secondary School Level, its thrust is of universal application across subjects and levels of education in Nigeria.