A Historical Study of the Impacts of Western Education on Catholic Religious Vocational Enterprise in South East Nigeria

Abstract

The work examined a historical study of the impact of Western Education on Catholic Religious Vocational Enterprise in Southeast, Nigeria. Eleven research questions and ten hypotheses, formulated in line with the statement of the problem, guided the study. The research design adopted for the study was historical – survey. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire, developed by the researcher, which contained (55) fifty five items, and titled “Western Education Impact on Religious Vocational Enterprise Questionnaire (WEIRVEQ). The instrument was validated by three experts in History of Education, Philosophy of Education, and Educational Measurement and Evaluation, all from the Faculty of Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The internal consistency of the instrument was ascertained using Cronbach Alpha, which yielded 0.94 as the reliability coefficient. With the help of six research assistants, the instrument was administered to a total of 674 respondents sampled from the whole population of 12, 112. Direct delivery and retrieval system was used and 100% was returned to the researcher. Mean scores and standard deviation were used for the analysis of the results of the questionnaire, while a t-test was applied to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings showed that the establishment of the western education; that the Holy Bible as a major book of reading of the premier western education; that the quest for intellectual growth and development through western education; that the apparent superiority of western education to the indigenous education; that the socio-economic emancipation achieved through the western education; that the apparent superiority of Christianity as incorporated in the premier western education to the traditional religion of the people; that the civilizing features of the western education; that the ambition of the youths to become like the masters of the western education; that the religious/moral education inherent in the curriculum of the premier western education, and that the quest for a steady progression of the project of western education, had positive impact on the Catholic religious vocational enterprise in Southeast Nigeria. Based on the findings, the researcher recommended, among others, that the Catholic Church should continue to promote Western Education in our time, just like the expatriate missionaries from Europe did in the Southeast areas of Nigeria.