Population Education is often misunderstood as Family Planning Studies which is mostly concerned with all aspects of reproductive health, fertility regulation, and family limitation programs in both developing and developed countries. But if we go deep into the matter, we find that it is a factual knowledge about population dynamics including fertility, mortality, migration etc. It is an educational process which helps people to understand the nature, the causes, and consequences of population events.
Population education is an educational process, which helps individual to learn about population and particularly the effect of population dynamics and the related problems on the individuals, family, community, nation and the world. Its main purpose is to create awareness, to provide knowledge and to develop positive attitude for improving population situation to ensure a better life now and in future.
Definitions
“Population education is an exploration of knowledge and attitude about population, the family and sex. It includes population awareness, family living, reproduction education and basic values.” – Burbson
“Population education may be defined as an educational program which provides for a study of the population phenomenon so as to enable the students to take rational decisions towards problems arising out of rapid population growth.” – Gopal Rao
“It is an educational program which provides for a study of population situation of the family, the community, nation and world, with the purpose of developing in the students rational and responsible attitudes and behavior towards that situation.” – UNESCO
Thus, Population Education is
- An educational program.
- Generation of interest and opportunity to study the effects of population growth on individual, family, community and country.
- Developing awareness about population control and positive and healthy attitudes about the program among the youths.
Assumptions of Population Education
The idea of population education is based on the following assumptions:
- Rapid growth of population is a constant threat to our economic development.
- Over-population affects the health and well being of the younger generation.
- Population explosion creates an obstacle for raising the standard of living of the masses.
- It is not to be mixed with sex education or the methods of family planning. Rather it should be a motivational force for creating the right attitude to family size.
- It is not a “once for all affairs”, rather, it should be continuous process.
General Aims of Population Education
The aims of population education are as follows:
(i) It aims at assisting the individual to understand the causes and consequences of population phenomena.
(ii) It enables the individual to understand how docs population situation affect the individual and society.
(iii) It aims at recognizing the causes of demographic phenomena and to enable the people to make changes in order to remove those obstacles for social progress.
(iv) It enables to acquire knowledge, skills, attitudes and values necessary to understand the concept of population education.
(v) It enables the learner to take a conscious and right decision about the prevailing population situations.
Courtesy: Your Article Library
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