Student Affairs Department

Education and educating people is in the real sense a lifelong project in the life of not only the individual involved, but also that of the society within which the individual lives.
In general terms, education involves both formal and informal aspects. The more formal aspects include teaching/learning in a classroom, laboratory, studio etc settings depending on the peculiarities of a given subject area or discipline and usually with a planned curricula.
The informal aspects involve everything outside the formal aspects. Anything we learn anew including especially through socialization as a member of society. In fact, education is daily living; it is a way of life. It is a culture itself.
This brings to mind that succinct definition of culture given by Kroeber (1953, P.12) as “the mass of learned and transmitted…habits, techniques, ideas and values and the behavior they induce”, and that of Taylor (1891, P.36) as “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, laws, customs, and any other capabilities and habits learnt by man as a member of society.”



The critical irreducible element is therefore learning whether in a formal or in an informal way. Consequently, whenever learning takes place, education has equally taken place.
In reality, there is no watertight division between formal education and the informal aspects of education. Sometimes, we find that even within formal education settings there are informal aspects. Those who pursue the informal aspects along with the formal become complete products while those who are strictly concerned only with what is written out in the curricula end up as defective products.
Most tertiary institutions are as concerned with the formal aspects as much as they are with the informal. This explains why the University of Nigeria, Nsukka awards certificates not just on the basis of excellent learning of what is contained in the curricular, but also on significant extra curricula which has to do with character, thus the magic words “Worthy in Character and Learning” boldly written on the certificates issued to graduates of most tertiary institutions.


Incidentally, most aspects of the informal education and the extra-curricular activities of students fall on the laps of the Student Affairs Department, usually charged with or expected to perform functions which regularly fall under the following heading: