Problems in Population Education

 Issues of Concept

Most population programmes refer to developing understanding, awareness attitudes and

responsible and informed decision-making and behaviour for improving the quality of life as the

end-product of the education activity. These goal statements are somewhat ambiguous and do not

specify the nature of the behaviour to be not know the definition one cannot be clear about its

aims and curriculum. When achieved. There is no satisfactory definition of population education.

When one does the concept is not clear, one continues to grope in the dark Due to controversial

nature of the population education, and a number of issues have been emerged:

1) What is population education?

2) How does it differ from family planning and/or sex education?

3) Does population education hold better prospects for success than family planning?

4) What is the guarantee that the non-prescriptive approach in population education will be

more effective than the prescriptive approach?

5) What do we mean by quality of life?

Issues in Curriculum

Population education is interdisciplinary in nature it is related to various subject areas. Different

countries have used different approaches for developing suitable curriculum. No clearly marked

content boundaries have been specified. The problem of an already overcrowded curriculum

makes it difficult to establish population education as an independent subject in school

education. Most countries of the world use the integration approach to include population

education concepts in different subjects. In most countries population education curriculum has

been integrated in as many as six or seven subjects. For this reason population education content

so dispersed and diffused that it looses its identity and focus. Although the over objectives of

population education at the school level are more or less the same approaches for materials

development. For example, the Republic of Korea and there are differences in the immediate

objectives, content areas, methodologies and Philippines undertake curricula of population

education relating to sexuality and family planning whereas other countries have disagreed in

including them because of socio-cultural factors.

Important Issues Related to Curriculum:

1) At what stage should population education be introduced?

2) In view of the already heavy curriculum what approach should be used to

3) Introduce population education in the curriculum?

4) What content should be included out different grade levels?

5) What should be the minimum learning contents for different categories of audiences?

Issues in Methods of Teaching

Some of the recommended methodologies for teaching population education are: discovery

oriented or inquiry approach, values clarification and role-playing. Some issues related to their

methodologies of teaching in population education are:

1) Which are the appropriate and effective methods of teaching population education?

2) What is the possibility of using discovery or inquiry approach in teaching

population education in view of the existing situations in schools?

3) Isn't it a contradiction to expect teachers to use the discovery or problem-solving

approach when they use traditional methods of teaching the subjects into which

population education has been integrated?

Issues in Training

Training occupies an important role in all population education programmes. But, it has also

been the most difficult problem for all the countries this is because of the enormous number of

teachers and other persons who need to be trained within the financial and time constraints. The

countries which have already started national population education programmes have

experimented with different strategies of training in addition to face-to-face training. Following

are some issues related to the training of personnel:

1) What are the alternatives to face-to-face training to reach the maximum number of

teachers and other personnel within a reasonable time, without sacrificing quality of

training?

2) What formative and summative evaluation could be used to assess and ensure

effectiveness of training programmes?

3) What strategies of in service training are cost effective?

4) What should be the duration of training for different categories of personnel in order to

be effective?

Issues in Research and Evaluation

During the past three to four years only some programmes have initiated comprehensive and

longitudinal studies to evaluate the impact of the population education programme. It deals not

only with the cognitive domain but even more importantly with the effective domain, le, with

attitudes, appreciations and values which are not easy to evaluate. In the absence of reliable tool

of evaluation, it would e very difficult to say whether the objectives of population education have

been achieved or not. Population education content has been integrated into different subject

There seems to be a dearth of research in the content and methodological areas population

education Researches, are not being utilised as bases for programming different components at

population education. The following are some issues relate to the research and evaluation in the

population education programme:

1) Can we say the changes in population related attitudes and values are due to population

education programmes?

2) To what extent would we be correct in attributing a reduction in the fertility rate in a

country to its population education programme?

3) How do we justify the population education programme vis-a-vis the family planning

programme?

Institutionalization of Population Education

Institutionalization of population education in the education system of the country involves

1) Content of population education becoming an integral part of the curriculum and

textbooks, either as a separate subject or as integrated into existing subjects.

2) Population education being incorporated as one of the areas of study in the pre-service

teacher training institutions.

3) Questions on population education being included in the public examination.

4) Population education also being introduced at the tertiary level of education as well as in

non-formal and adult education programmes.

Trends in Population Education

Population Education National Source Book writes the following trends of population education

during the past decade:

1) Population education is considered by most countries to be an integral part of their

national development plan and education policies.

2) Although virtually all population education programmes portray an open-minded, non-

prescriptive approach in their goals and objectives, the content as well as approach are

often implicitly and sometimes explicitly, more directed towards the specific goal of

promoting a small family norm. The funding agencies also want to see the effect of

population education programmes on the reproductive behaviour of the target audience.

This is more true for the out-of-school youths and adults.

3) Population education is considered relevant, not only by the countries with large

populations, but also countries with small populations with rates of population growth.

4) Although population education is being introduced at all levels of school education

priority is being given to the middle and secondary levels.

5) The scope and content is being broadened to include concepts relating to sex education,

family life education, responsible parenthood, adolescent education, fertility, delayed

marriage and population related beliefs and values.

 

Mr Sanjay Bhardwaj

Assistant Professor

JEMTEC, GN