THE UNIVERSITY OF ZAMBIA

SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL SCIENCES EDUCATION

CIVIC EDUCATION SECTION

NAME: KASOKA MUNGANDI

COMP. #: 11032545

COURSE: CVE 4020

LECTURER: MR. MULEYA G.

TASK: ASSIGNMENT TWO

QUESTION

CONDUCT A SURVEY IN THE COMMUNITY ABOUT WHAT PEOPLE KNOW

CONCERNING CIVIC EDUCATION.

DUE DATE: 9th JANUARY, 2015.

Civic Education is seen as an important component of education that inculcates and encourages
citizens to participate in the public life of a democracy, to use their rights and to discharge their
responsibilities with the necessary desirable knowledge, values, attitudes, norms and skills. Civic
Education indeed, is of great value to every citizen due to its miracles of suppressing the culture
of silence in our children, communities and country in encountering socio-economical, cultural
and political lacunas. However, is Civic Education as a new field of study and practice
worldwide gaining popularity in our country Zambia? Therefore, the essay below will be based
on the survey conducted in Mongu during the vacation about what people know concerning
Civic Education. The essay goes direct into the survey I conducted of which the apex of the
discussion shall be concluded.

Civic Education as a new field of study and practice is indeed gaining popularity in our country.
In Mongu where I spent my entire vacation, I managed to ask or interview few people about
what they know concerning civic education and few managed to give me perfect answers and
others seemed astonished to hear such things concerning civic education. Generally, the
following is what I managed to harvest or gain during the survey about civic education in
Mongu.

First and foremost, civic education was seen as that which offers peace education to the citizens
of Zambia. Peace education is this mannerism is seen as that education which seeks to help
citizens gain the ability to prevent conflict, and to resolve conflict peacefully when it does arise,
whether on the intrapersonal, interpersonal, intergroup, national or international level. Peace
education also addresses cognitive, affective and behavioral learning and can occur both within
schools, through curriculum development and teacher education, and outside of schools, through
camps, sports and recreation programs, youth groups and clubs, and training for community
leaders, parents, librarians and the media. For example, Zambia since 1964 has never
experienced conflict in one way or another and it has proved to be more seriously after the
introduction of civic education in our schools, communities and universities. Therefore, it is of
great value to a society at large especially during elections time.

Secondly, civic education was seen as an educational activity. This simply meant that civic
education is a positive aspect or practice aimed at alleviating poverty, injustices, discriminations,
wars, abuse of human rights, unfairness to mention but a few through helping young ones
acquire, develop and transmit desirable accumulated and new knowledge, wisdom, values,
attitudes and skills as a result of growth, maturation and learning which can be best utilized for
life in a changing society conclusively for the benefit of everyone. Civic education thus, is a
multidimensional process of intent aimed at improving the lives of all mankind be it social,
economical, political, cultural and technologically.

Thirdly, civic education was seen as linked to civics offered at junior level (grade 8 and 9).
Clearly, Civic education as a new field of study and practice particularly in Zambia, many have
been trying to link it to terms such as civics, citizenship, democracy, politics, education,
governance and many other related concepts to civic education. Nevertheless, civic education is
known as an ongoing process because of its miracles in any society like Zambia. In this case,
civics is just a component of civic education as civic education is at the cutting edge of a number
of cognate disciplines; for example, law, sociology, management and economics, political
science as well as public administration. The notion is hard to pin down as compared to civics,
but it does seem accepted that a number of forces have converged so as to change the nature of
what is affecting people in society.

Fourthly, civic education was seen as linked to community participation and partnerships in
Mongu. Civic Education as a field of study aimed at preparing competent and responsible
citizens, advocates civic and political engagement and provides active learning experiences that
connect student’s academic learning with civic involvement. Therefore, these ideas and concepts
emphasized here are essential in the sense that civic education is not about classroom teaching
and learning practices only but also about community partnerships and participation as they are
relevance to students and their experiences. For example, society as a whole includes families,
community members, the private and not-for-profit sectors, government, faith communities, and
students themselves, along with schools and all shares responsibility in preparing young people
for future success. Future success for sure cannot be achieved without linking civic education to
partnerships and participation as they include living productive lives, engaging in lifelong
learning, finding gainful employment, and contributing to civic life by trying to close the gap
between living and learning as schools offering civic education need to seek out teaching and
learning opportunities from within their communities.
Furthermore, civic education was seen as offering the kind of education which liberates many
people from the culture of silence. The culture of silence in this manner is referred to as the
domestication education where people are denied the power to think for themselves and become
architects of their own destinies and does not provide them with a critical perception of their own
social reality which would enable them to know what needs changing and actually take action to
change. For example, this was more common during Dr. Kaunda’s regime where people were
denied the chance to practice the freedom of expression and assembly, and it was totally anarchy
in all affairs of the country. In our days, the silence of culture has been shattered specifically by
civic education responsible for making people become aware of their conditions and their
democratic rights to participate in social change or transformation.

Above all, civic education was seen as that touches social, economical, cultural, environmental
and political realities. This simply means that it is through civic education that good relationship
or citizenship, fair distribution of goods and services, cleanliness towards our environment,
constitutional government and positive societal core values can be achieved in our country.
Clearly, civic education promotes togetherness or oneness among the citizens in solving or
finding solutions to social lacunas or challenges.

From the above discussion, it can be concluded that civic education as a new field of study and
practice is really gaining popularity in all parts of Zambia including Mongu and its popularity is
commonly seen in its ideas of trying to promote good governance through helping young ones
acquire, develop and transmit desirable accumulated and new knowledge, wisdom, values,
attitudes and skills as a result of growth, maturation and learning which can be best utilized for
life in a changing society conclusively for the benefit of everyone in getting involved in social,
economical, cultural and political activities. Though, other people do not know anything
concerning civic education in Mongu, its purposeful activities liberates young people from the
culture of silence and become fully in engaging themselves in community life and help them
move from the periphery of their community to its center. Therefore, the survey I conducted in
Mongu about what people know concerning civic education, changed what I used to perceive as
civic education in the teaching and learning classroom situations and realize that civic education
perfectly involves interaction in terms of community links and partnerships to practice what one
has acquired and transmit it as civic education is seen as kindling of a flame not filling of a
vessel.