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Review
International education as a tool for rapid emancipation of
countries of the economic community of West African states (ECOWAS)
Idowu Biao
Department of
Adult and Continuing Education-University of Calabar,
Calabar, Nigeria. E-mail:
idowubao@yahoo.com . Tel: 08056339065.
Accepted 29 July, 2009
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The Economic
Community of West African States was established in 1975
with the view to fast tracking economic development in the
West African sub-region. However, thirty-three years after,
ECOWAS is only struggling to rid itself of those obstacles
that have prevented it from achieving its goal. Chief among
those obstacles are illiteracy, wars, poor health care
delivery, gender inequality and poverty. A number of steps
have been taken in the past to see to it that the main
objective of ECOWAS is achieved; these steps have not
brought the expected result; ECOWAS therefore remains with
its challenges. However, it is here suggested that if ECOWAS
would employ a strategy that will bring its citizens to
learn about themselves and about the potentials of their
community, then, it will succeed in achieving its objective
of functional integration. A process of learning such as
this, is known as “international education”. In this
specific sense, promotion of functional learning of French
and English languages, development of traditional medicine,
continuous research into indigenous and modern strategies of
conflict resolution, promotion of gender equality and
reduction of poverty through new cross border types of
learning are activities identified as harbinger of
opportunities that will lead ECOWAS citizens to learn more
about themselves and eventually act in a way that will
become beneficial to the generality of the members of this
community. This is international education and the benefit
thereof is the eventual functional integration of West
African countries.
Key words:
ECOWAS, education, international education, poverty,
development. |
