Concerned about the quality of political education on campuses across the country, the African Centre for Media and Information Literacy (AFRICMIL) in partnership with the Centre for Critical Thinking and Resourceful Research in Africa (CECTRRA), is organizing a series of roundtables to raise political awareness among students in tertiary institutions under its Political Education Project (PEP).
Coordinator of AFRICMIL, Chido Onumah, said the project had become imperative as students in tertiary institutions had neglected their vanguard role in building a progressive society. He pointed out that the firebrand activism, and progressive pro-working people viewpoints dominant in the pre and post-independence years were no more, adding that what now obtained was a deliberate scheming to justify, promote and further the actions of the ruling class.
“We now have a situation where instead of being the progressive forces that they were in the past, students have now become key agents of reaction and willing tools in the hands of the political elite and ruling class,” Onumah noted.
The roundtables are also expected to spark off political debates among students that seek to rekindle the activism and engagement of the 70s and 80s and to help students understand that they have a duty to challenge the current social order.
The first roundtables which is open to students and youth will hold on Tuesday and Thursday, the 24th and 26th of July 2018, at the Parliamentary Building, Department of Political Science, UNIABUJA (Mini Campus), Gwagwalada, Abuja, by 10:00AM.
Dr. Abubakar Garba Umar Kari, Senior Lecturer, Department of Sociology, University of Abuja, and Ms. Goodness Michael, political economist and media educator, will speak on Political Education and Political Miseducation in the Age of New/Social Media on Tuesday, July 24, 2018, while Dr. Ernest Uchenna Ereke of the Department of Political Science, University of Abuja, and Dr. Magdalene Igbolo, Department of Sociology, University of Abuja will speak on Critical Thinking and Political Activism: The Role of Students in National Transformation on Thursday, July 26, 2018.
This project is supported by the Rosa Luxembourg Foundation.
AFRICMIL is a pan-African centre that works for the advancement of democracy and good governance and the empowerment of citizens through the promotion of media and information literacy.
The Centre for Critical Thinking and Resourceful Research in Africa (CECTRRA) is a research centre devoted to African self-understanding. It seeks to change the way Africans think by critically engaging the different types of thinking through workshops, seminars, and conferences.
