Before endorsing or opposing any of the views on whether or not age is a barrier to learning, I want us to critically consider and intentionally examine the meaning of the three nouns that make up the sentence: age, barrier, and learning.
The first of the words is Age. Age has to do with period, epoch, maturing, aging, or aging. As a man, we must not forget that getting old or maturing comes with many responsibilities.
Now consider the barrier. Barrier is synonymous with fence, blockade, obstruction, obstacle, hurdle and difficulty. Note that of all these synonyms, there is not one word that can permanently stop a given mind. With determination, they are seen by the winners as challenges and not as the end of a road. I belong to the category of people who see those words as challenges but not as a final end. In fact, the only ultimate end I recognized is death. And any body that fails to bow, whether living or dead, is death as far as I’m concerned.
Learning, on the other hand, means education or acquisition of knowledge. If you agree with me that learning is synonymous with education and can sometimes be used interchangeably without penalty, then learning could also be classified into three types such as education: formal education (formal learning), non-formal education (non-formal learning), and non-formal education. informal (informal learning).
Now that these words have been considered and clearly elucidated, one can now comfortably have an opinion on whether or not age is a barrier to education, however, I will be indifferent in hastily supporting or opposing because, as a pragmatist, I believe in saying the stuff. as they are, but not as they look. Considering a formal learning system that is an organized way of learning within the four walls of an institution, age could be a barrier. For example, he is an extremely determined person who can enroll in a formal education system at the age of forty. A forty-year-old is already burdened with many responsibilities that could be a barrier to relying on a formal system at that age. At this age, some of the barriers could be marriage, children, finances, and work.
According to Age Concern Northern Ireland’s policy position paper, older people should have equal opportunities to continue their education, develop new skills and talents. That means there are some opportunities that older people are supposed to be exposed to or share with young people, but are denied because of their age. That said, it is not enough to admit that age is a barrier to learning, because formal learning is only one aspect of learning.
From the learning of formal, non-formal and informal understandings, learning can be seen as part of life, a fact that occurs from the cradle to the grave. It means that one begins to learn as soon as possible until death.
Considering that learning is from cradle to death, we have to take some illustration to prove the point. A child learns to cry, drink water and even breastfeed from the day he is born. The child continues to learn in this way until the formal learning age when the child will be registered in a formal school system.
Age is not a barrier to learning because some people who dropped out of school for one reason or another often register for public exams like the General Certificate of Education (GCE) even in their forties and still go back to school to study. continue your studies. If age is a barrier to learning, those who dropped out of school before 1970 in Nigeria would not have known how to use computers, because computers were not taught in Nigerian schools before 1970.
Also, some people learn and acquire a skill or two even in their late fifties. It could be a game or any other pleasurable skill.
Furthermore, Professor Pat Utomi said in one of his media interviews with AIT that a professor who did not attend two seminars per year is not qualified to stand up and lecture in any classroom because what he will give the students will be obsolete. , obsolete and poisonous to the nation. According to him, every lecturer, whether professor or not, must be sponsored to attend two or more seminars each year, either by the government or by his employer. This connotes that even as a teacher who might have been forty or older, he is still mandated to learn by the law of dynamism.
Who? Whether infant or adult, young or old who hasn’t learned a thing or two today. A man dies the moment he stops to learn. In the office we learn, in religious houses we learn, in the market places we learn, and even at home we learn. Traveling and tourism is also part of learning. How can age be a barrier to learning when learning never stops until man dies?
In conclusion, you can agree with me after reviewing the points about age and learning that have been clarified so far that regardless of age trying to be a barrier to the formal system of learning, it is not enough to say that age is a barrier. barrier to learning. The only thing that is permanent in life is change, and it is only learning that sustained change in that state.
