Educating for justice and righteousness in Nigerian society: Applying Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed

Abstract

Nigerian society is bedeviled by corruption and injustice, whose prevalence may be partly explained by the dominant educational systems in the country. Paulo Freire has suggested that unjust systems are sustained by educational systems that condition learners to accept injustice. He also indicts the church for supporting such educational systems. He proposes the problem-posing education that helps learners to question and act against the conditions of their oppression to gain freedom from such conditions. This article proposes that, as the Bible enjoins us to “train up a child in the way that he should go” (Prov 22:6), and Jesus Christ often posed problems to encourage learners to think and act, Freire’s problem-posing approach is a good model for Christian educators to use in nurturing justice and righteousness in Nigeria, Africa, and the entire world.