Child Centered Education: Criticisms

Abstract

There have been quite a lot of concerns and arguments over the appropriateness of CCE for developing countries where the social and cultural values, educational traditions, and available resources are so different from the West. Most of the educationists argue for the teacher centred formalistic approach which is believed to be more suitable for contexts where resources are sufficient and teacher professional capability is very high. Issues related to CCE in developing countries have been the focus of discussion from 1980s and particularly the 1990s. The major intention of the present study to explore the major criticisms related to child centered education. Eleven serious criticisms: danger of centeredness; absenting knowledge; learner centeredness: scientifically validated?; freedom versus discipline; practicality of learner centered teaching; individual and society; the absence of authentic social relationships; teacher's roles; natural Sequence of development; the powerless female teacher and child; and the free and individual child: an illusionary and decontextualized construct have been discussed in the present article.