IS COMPARATIVE EDUCATION STILL NECESSARY IN THE 21ST CENTURY UNIVERSITY INSTITUTIONS IN NIGERIA? STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Comparative Education (CE) is a common course for the undergraduate students aspiring to be a teacher. CE is a discipline postgraduate students can specialise on. Despite the importance of the course to prospective teachers, it is being dreaded by students. Based on the above narrative, questions were formulated tease the study. A qualitative approach was developed. Impretative paradigm was used to make sense of the participants’ narrative. Using interpretative paradigm, six universities from six geopolitical zones of Nigeria were purposively selected. Furthermore, eighteen participants were selected and narrative analysis was used. The findings indicated among others that despite of the phobia developed by students towards the CE, it is very necessary in the contemporary era due to its revolutionization, innovative and internationalization dispositions. Based on the above findings, the study recommended that Nigerian government should allocate funds to university governing councils to employ competent and qualified experts in comparative education who possess expertise in the field and making the course interesting.