THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MUSEUM EDUCATION DEPARTMENT, IN STIMULATING CULTURAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND PROVIDING CONCRETE CONCEPTUAL THINKING FOR NATION BUILDING AND DEVELOPMENT

The word Museum is derived from a Greek word “Mousein” meaning temple of muses dedicated to nine daughters of Zeus. The muses were responsible for the protection of the arts, dance, drama, poetry and so on.

The International Council Of Museums (ICOM) had since its inception in 1947 come up with several definitions. In 2007, ICOM came up with a definition which defines a museum as “a non-profit permanent institution in the service of the society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment” (ICOM, Vienna-Austria, 2007).

Museum Education Officer, conducting people 

round the Museum and explaining things to them  

In August 24^th, 2022, ICOM approved a new definition for museum as: A museum is a non-for-profit, permanent institution in the service of society that researches, collects and conserves, interprets and exhibits tangible and intangible heritage, open to the public, accessible and inclusive, museum fostering diversity and sustainability. 

 

According to Programme for Museum Development in Africa (PMDA 2001), Museum Education is the totality of educational activities undertaken by a museum to effectively communicate with a diverse public, using heritage resources as its guide and catalyst. This definition asserts that Museum Education is saddled with the responsibility of taking care of all the educational activities in the museum. 

Education, according to F. O Adu, is defined as the growing and shaping of individuals behaviour pattern or modification of behaviour for adequate adjustment in the society.

Learning from the above definitions, an inference, to the effect that the education department of the Museums in Nigeria has a huge task, of which more support and encouragement are needed, from the governments and members of the public, who in this piece are considered equal stakeholders as: consumers, beneficiaries and benefactors. This inference is strengthened or rather supported, by the reasoning of Emmanuel Arinze, as captured in his definition of museum education, saying: it is an intellectual and practical translation of abstract framework of museum activities into intelligent, understandable and positive realities through non-formal and non-rigid methods.

Another Education officer on duty

The above aptly underscores, quite fundamentally, the role of museum education department, in Nigeria, as an integral part of a systematic and strategic efforts, targeted deliberately at forward looking, impact driven and sustainable behaviours, designed as a response to the growing need, in Nigeria, for museum exhibits or materials to express themselves, communicate more meaning and reach the public in a more meaningful, admirable, and indeed practical manner, with the  education department, leading as the mouth piece of the museum objects.

A close look at the portion of the definition offered by Arinze, particularly where he noted very clearly, as follows: “practical translation of abstract framework of museum activities...” draws attention to a salient aspect of the task of the museum education department, for which this discourse is apt, bearing in mind especially, the importance of heritage and culture in tourism development, and essentially, the relevance of it, in the national economic development, in the modern world.

The foregoing, among other things, identifies the need for a deliberate and tactical move towards a new and strongly encouraged education department, in the Nigerian museums, taking cognizance of the fact that it is one sure means of stimulating cultural consciousness, as well as a fundamental approach of injecting into the Nigerian system, a strongly coordinated, effectual and sustainable method of providing concrete conceptual thinking for nation building and development. It is indeed, a basic ingredient, and profoundly so. This is because it will provide the needed opportunity to connect, appropriately, the seemingly unknown National Commission for Museums and Monument, to the public. This development, will in several ways, help to effectively reposition the near comatose Commission, and as a matter of fact, her services, obviously essential, because of the numerous benefits to the public and government, will gain traction, and contribute significantly to the collective efforts to rebuild the ailing Nigerian economy, and fast track her growth and development.

While more support and encouragement is expected for the appropriate authorities, it is ideal to highlight in this piece, some of the functions of education department of the museums, in Nigeria. They include, but not limited to the responsibilities below:

• Making learning more permanent and practical by arousing the interest of the people on the museum objects, and creating an environment, where the objects speak to the people through them, the education staff as the mouth piece; and through their various programmes, enlighten its community on the functions of the museum.
• Operating and communicating ethically and professionally, and with the participation of communities, offer varied experiences for education, enjoyment, reflection and knowledge sharing. This means that museum collections serve as educational resources hence the establishment of Museum Education Department.
• Promote the museum as a center of public learning, using the museum’s heritage resources.
• Enlightens and enhances understanding of the museum audience by communicating and interpreting the museum’s heritage resources.
• Stimulates the capabilities and creativity of the individuals and groups that visit the museum.
• Balances formal and informal systems of learning.

From the foregoing, it is imperative to note that Education is very important in the museum and it is largely the duty of the government, who presently owns most the museums to increasingly, fund the activities of the education department with the collaboration, of course, of the well meaning members of the public, and corporate organizations; and for the Museum Education department to make sure that education activities in the museum are carried out appropriately and diligently.

Part of the functions of the Museum Education department, of the National Commission for Museums and Monuments are already presented. Generally, the department takes care of the museum educational activities. Deriving from this, and acting in tandem with the fact that the Museum, is known as a house of culture worldwide, it is incumbent on the department, as a significant tool in stimulating cultural consciousness and providing concrete conceptual thinking for nation building and development, to carry out her responsibilities, maintaining strictly, an unflinching disposition of not only education, awareness and sensitization creation, but work out dependable strategy that ensures that the objectives of the museum to the country, among which, is to protect Nigeria’s precious antiquities from illicit trafficking, is being achieved.

To conclude this piece, a summary of the activities of the Education Department of the museum are presented as following:

• Educate and enlighten both the old and young ones in our society about their past.
• The arm of the National museums that is responsible for educational matters and activities in the commission as they affect schools, societies, children, adults, groups and individuals etc is the education unit. It is also responsible for the dissemination of museum information and organization of symposia. The department deals mostly with children and adults and plan programmes such as art club, formal lectures, films seminars, special tours, long holiday programmes etc. The unit runs an outreach programmes whereby staff are allowed to organize and lecture in courses run by education authorities both within and outside the museum. To this end therefore it is pertinent to examine the functions of museum education.
• Museum is a center of public learning and it is the museum education that promotes the museum to this status, this is done by using the museum heritage resources.
• The museum audience gets enlightened through museum education. This is because the museum heritage resources are communicated and interpreted to the public through museum education.
• It stimulates the capabilities and creativity of the individuals and groups that visit the museum.
• It balances formal and informal systems of learning. This it does through many other activities carried out by education department of the museum.
• Education department also organize seminars and workshops for teachers on how to use museum resources for the education of children and adults in our society. In short, the department educates the children, the youth and the general public.
• The department organizes long holiday programme in the museum where schools children are taught skills during holiday periods.
• The department also organizes symposia and groups or debate for students as well as the general public, to educate them on the museum objects and other contemporary issues like; dangers in girl-child marriage, health issues, civics etc. through these and other many ways, the education unit in a museum is helping children and even adults to enjoy and benefits from the great cultural heritage which she possess.
• The department also plays the role of public relations in a museum, teaches, instructs, guides and imparts knowledge in meaningful ways about the Nigerian culture using objects/artifacts on its collection. The education officers establish and maintain mutual understanding between the museum and its public.
• The staff of the department, help the visitors in guided tour of the museum, in other words the staff help in the interpretation of museum objects on display in the museum exhibition galleries using either of these methods: demonstration, discussion, lecturing, didactics and group activities during guided tour.
• The education department generates revenue to the museum through programmes organized for public enlightenment and organized visits. Taking into cognizance the vital role the units in educating the public, ICOM created a specialized committee among others known as ICOM International Committee for education and cultural action in museum (CECA), the body that monitors educational programmes in museum worldwide. This body serves as a data bank for its members who offer educational programmes while carrying out researches on various aspects of museum education such as evaluation methods and related matters.

The education department of the various museums under the National Commission for Museum and Monuments, Nigeria, carries out the above functions either in its intra-moral, extra-moral or cross programmes. Such programmes are guided tour, Saturday art club, long holiday programme, exhibition of long holiday and art club products, skill acquisition and so on. The department therefore, plays a vital role in the dissemination and communication of museum value to the public, through which, it stimulates cultural consciousness, providing to the public concrete conceptual thinking, necessary for the highly needed task of building the nation and ensuring her Socio-economic growth and sustainable development,.

REFERENCES

https://www.dreamstime.com/photos-images/museum-students.html

ICOM (2007).Statues adopted by the 22^nd General Assembly Vienna, Austria 24, August 2007

PMDA (2001). A workshop on Children and Museum Strategic Programme formulation workshop, Mombassa– Kenya, organized by Programme for Museum Development in Africa held from 4^th – 17^th November, 2001. 

Stella Nkechinyere Ikokwu

Chief Education Officer

National Museum, Abuja.