INHERENT ALLIANCE OF ADULT EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT: AS SYNERGY TO RURAL TRANSFORMATION.

Abstract

The importance of rural areas to the socio-economic development of any nation cannot be brushed aside, however; rural communities are usually characterized by peasant agricultural and pastoral activities, high levels of illiteracy, poverty, ignorance and superstitious belief system that often retard their economic progress as well as subject them to rejection of modern development. Development more often than not; is about people, their needs and their circumstances. For the rural community to embrace holistic development, they have to be educated and enlightened. There is a need to articulate progress that will give them a new lease on life, which will enhance their socio-economic well-being, reduce the tendency of rural-urban drift, better contribute to the national economic growth and development through improved raw material production and supply as well as to improve their social and political responsibility. The need to develop a new approach that revealed the recognition of participatory development activities, such action calls for a holistic approach to various human endeavour. However, research revealed that poverty is more glaring in the rural areas as its both geographical (the semi-desert and the forest region), personal, biological as well as economical. For rural areas to be transformed effectively, therefore, there must be people's active representation and citizen participation in such a programme to benefit their lots. On this note, therefore, a type of education like adult education, in which men and women seek to improve themselves and subsequently increase their skills, knowledge, and understanding as well as advance their society is necessary.