THE IMPORTANT OF COMMUNITY OF INQUIRY PHILOSOPHY FOR CHILDREN SYSTEM OF EDUCATION (COPI4C) IN OUR SCHOOLS IN ENUGU STATE WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO UDI L.G.A.

ABSTRACT

The Important of Community of Inquiry Philosophy for children system of education (COPI4C) in primary schools give rise to a whole set of higher order thinking and the appearances of wonderful change from failure classroom to a dynamic faith. Therefore with the important of COIP4C, analytical spirit, critical spirit and creative endeavors, we can acquire the democratic habits of taking turn thinking together, community information the whole value of teaching for thinking. The study is based important of Community of Inquiry Philosophy for children system of education (COPI4C) in our primary system in Udi Local government Area. A sample of thirty teachers was drawn from ten primary schools out of ninety one in Udi L.G.A. Furthermore, some research questions were raised such as -There are low performances of academic activities among pupils in primary schools at last, the major findings from the study showed that the important of Community of Inquiry Philosophy for children system of education (COPI4C) system of education, insists mainly on self-correction, tolerance and Inquiry oriented system.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The important of community of Inquiry philosophy for children (COIP4C) system of education is the strategic life planning and management that set the components of a system into action to produce an output beneficial to all parts, mutually and cumulatively. The values focus on the vision that will direct our actions for the betterment of education in the society. Therefore good environmental scanning and improvement will ensure the realization of the education of our dream-education buttressed with reasoning and empowered by critical, creative and caring thinking. Only the values of community of Inquiry philosophy for children (COIP4C) system of education will make primarily schools in Udi L.G.A raise a generation that will imbibe the culture of dialogue, non-violence, tolerance, selflessness and self realization.

The important of community of Inquiry philosophy for children (COIP4C) in our schools is to provide the avenue for observing and acting on the environmental changes to ensure that there are no external barriers to success of our visionary ideal educational system in Udi L.G.A.

Moreso, the values of community of Inquiry philosophy for children focus on the creation of an enabling environment for our thought pattern to accept that nobody knows it all, but is as internal part of a learning process that builds a strong society.

1.2 POINT OF INQUIRY

Infact, lack of community of Inquiry philosophy for children contributes to the poorly performances of our pupils in schools.

This lack of community of Inquiry philosophy for children (COIP4C) system of education makes our products from schools to be educated illiterate and certificated but not certified.

1.3 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY

The common thread in all activities is thinking the fates and fortunes of young people will be intimately connected to their capacity and their desire to think well. The system makes all the participants seek for holistic knowledge in making special effort to prevent violence and gossiping in our primary schools. The system encourages the pupils to think of new possibilities, and alternatives and to use the imaginations in co-operative behavioural patterns of life necessary for success in the 3^rd millennium when global citizenship will be the order of the day.

The active participation in community of inquiry philosophy for children helps us make significant corrections between what we think, say and do.

Moreso, the collaborative dimension of community of inquiry causes a sudden empowerment of the individual human persons who begin to play communal role more easily and more frequently; this means that community of inquiry strengthens the ego perspective and enriches the poorer egograms of the participants. And the participants in community of inquiry notice that the activities address communication skills such as active listening, turn-taking, verbal confidence and competent group processing and concelebration skills and buildings a correct sense of trust, mutual respect, empathy and above all, the development of a most delicate social safe-guard: the almighty value of tolerance in a problem ridden situation. Therefore with the value of community of inquiry philosophy for children (COIP4C); analytical spirit, critical spirit and creative endeavours, we can acquire the democratic habit of taking turns, thinking together, community formation and the whole value of teaching for thinking.

Moreso, community of inquiry philosophy for children (COIP4C) makes the pupils to have the mind of balance judgements and sound decisions and also have the mind give and expect good reasons for opinions to ask questions which probe the heart of a problem and engage in dialogue with life.

Also according to Anih, pupils always try to make sense of their own experience rather than rely practically on interpretations handed down to them and the other side of the coin is never taken for granted. Moreso, pupils are sensitive to the principle of fallibilistic flexibility and they always evaluate the quality of their own thinking to find out when self-correction is needed.

The critical and creative dimension of (P4C) in the community of inquiry (COI) has a tremendous implication of vivifying the dry curriculum into a life-wire and currents of values which necessarily transform for better the personal lives of the participants; purifies the social tilt of the citizenry and causes and accentuates pyre sensitivity of an ethical development in the members to be opportune to grapple with the big problems and questions of life and think for themselves in the company of others for alternatives that makes them to see themselves not just as statical numbers in the classroom but as pupils who matter and are contributing to on-going discussion among their equals.

According to Anih (2007) in community of Inquiry philosophy for children (COIP4C) system of education, pupils don’t focus on rationality but on reasonableness, that is, rationality tempered by good judgement.

Also, community of Inquiry philosophy for children (COIP4C) is mainly based on change, progress, dynamic and organic interaction which will help the pupils to subject all knowledge to the spirit of critical, creative and analytic inquiry as only inquiry can give rise to an ecumenical self-correcting process of fallibilistic flexibility.

Therefore, the end effect of this communitarian spirit of inquiry is that the very young ones participating in the community of Inquiry in a mysterious way develop mastery of the cognitive and social qualitative reasonable judgements of the existential-community.

We will begin to take great delight in evaluating others as we try to see all the sides of the coin. Community of Inquiry philosophy for children (COIP4C) is the greatest weapon against frustration and intellectual suicide.

Finally the young generations who participate in community of inquiry philosophy for children (COIP4C) system of education thus:

- They give good reasons for their personal opinion and often demand good reasons from themselves for their actions.

- In the community of inquiry, pupils learn the art and practice of new ideas.

- Making balanced judgement and decisions in their day to day life

1.4 SCOPE OR DELIMITATION

The researcher is a holistic individual who do not want to claimed that the information collected was fully.

Infact the hindrances were on the target audience; some of them in the selected schools had little or no idea about the values of community of Inquiry philosophy for children (COIP4C) system of education; there was little or no information collected in some of the schools.

Another hindrance is on finance; there was no money for the-transportation. And also weather condition; rain will disturb in some days of visitation.

Therefore because of the scope of the study, the researcher delimited the areas to visit to ten primary schools in Udi L.G.A. These school were:

§ Community Primary School Nachi

§ Premier Primary School Udi

§ Community Primary School Abinagu

§ Central School Umuabi

§ Southwest Primary School Amokwe

§ Community Primary School Agbudu

§ Community Primary School Udi

§ Central School Amokwe

§ Community Primary School Umuaga

§ Central School Obinagu

Also thirty teachers and few pupils were used to collect information on the values of community of Inquiry philosophy for children (COIP4C) system of education in primary schools in Udi Local Government Area of Enugu State.

ASSUMPTIONS

Infact due to lack of community of Inquiry philosophy for children (COIP4C) system of education, the researcher assumed that the following:

a. There will be poor performances in our schools.

Therefore in order to correct the bad situation in our academic sector the researcher formulated the following research questions:

- Government should introduce – Community of Inquiry Philosophy for children (COIP4C) system of education in our schools.

- There are examination malpractice in our primary schools

- There are poor performances among pupils academic work

- Teachers and pupils are involve in lateness to school

- Pupils attend schools regularly