Introduction
Meaning of Education and a Brief History of Western Education in Nigeria
The truth remains that there is no general definition of education as no one person should be presumed to have the final say on matters relating to it. In this study, reviews of the meanings of education from different angles would be given rather than an etymological definition.
Education is described as the process of transmitting the culture of a society from one generation to the other (Kolawole, 2015). It is knowledge acquisition, a process and means by which a society evolves for the purpose of impacting its values and mores, as well as pursuance and attainment of its collective vision,
aspirations and goals. A great philosopher of education, late Prof. Akinkuotu established that education is a process through which man is raised up in the right way so as to be good through the inculcation of the right knowledge that will empower him to be fitted into his immediate environment. It is the development of the whole man- soul, body, intellectual, emotional and physical well-being. This point of view is in
consonance with Bamisaye’s position that education is a cumulative process of development; development of intellectual abilities, skills and attitudes, all which form our various outlooks and dispositions to action in life generally.
Factually, there is a confluence where all these highlighted meanings meet. This means that they all share one same attribute and this attribute is that education takes place in all human societies and every society determines its own form of education.
As noted by Babarinde (2016), western education has long history in Nigeria. The first beneficiaries were slaves and children of slaves who were exposed to western education abroad and later those educated at home. Fafunwa (1974) equally narrated that the first recorded effort was some sort of educational institution in the Oba of Benin’s palace in 1515, while major open attempts took place in 1842 and 1843 through the Methodist Missionary Society, Church Missionary Society. Likewise, the ground
breaking record was set by Christian Missionary Societies with the first secondary school CMS Grammar School, Lagos, established in 1859.

What is Critical Literacy?
Critical literacy has no set definition rather many scholars have defined it in diverse ways Etymologically, literacy is perceived to be peculiar to reading and writing. But literacy has gone beyond only reading and writing. One can now talk about digital literacy, critical literacy, sustainability literacy and the list is endless. Our focus in this work is critical literacy. The University of Melbourne (2018) put it that critical literacy is a central thinking skill that involves the questioning and examination of ideas, and requires one to synthesize, analyse, interpret, evaluate and respond to texts read or listened to. It is a process whereby readers question, explore, or challenge the power relationships that exist between authors and readers. It examines issues of power and promotes reflection, transformative change, and action. Similarly, Jones (2006) stated that critical literacy is like a pair of eyeglasses that allows one to see beyond the familiar and comfortable.
Critical literacy is an effort to discover alternative paths for self and social development. It is a kind of literacy (words rethinking the world) that connects the political and the personal, the public and the private, the global and the local, the economic and the pedagogical for rethinking our lives and for promoting justice in place of inequity. Students/learners are positioned to operate as “boarder crosser” in the process of using critical literacy (Anderson and Irvine 1993). The idea of boarder crosser is eminent in Katherine, Lucas and Catherine (2022) narratives. Likewise, one of the authors of this study always challenges his pupils’ perceptions of a familiar and often favorite story, The Tortoise and the Dog. He begins the class by reading the text aloud to the students. Most of the pupils laughed fondly as they remembered hearing the story as a child. After reading the text, it is then discussed. The pupils usually comment on how the book teaches children to share and to love their friends. They talk about their remembrance of hearing the story read to them by parents. Everyone is feeling happy.
Then, he asks the pupils to listen to the story again, this time paying attention to social justice, which socioeconomic class implied by some people having food in plentiful while the entire village is famished. What message does the story portray about racial and ethnic differences? As the class reads the book a second time, there is a definite change in the atmosphere of the discussion. The pupils begin to perceive the story in a different way. They are more attuned to looking at texts from different perspectives. From
the illustration above, critical literacy encourages readers to question, explore, or challenge the power relationships that exist between author and readers. Mentor (2021) revealed that critical literacy helps to critically analyse and understand issues of social economic and political injustice and inequities. It helps to deconstruct internalized sense of worthlessness and oppression. It also creates a space for alternative paths for self growth. It promotes action, transformation and social justice within a community of learners. It is important to know that all these are achieved by placing attention on social justice qualities, stereotypes, gender roles, socioeconomic class, accuracy and authenticity, racial and ethnic portrayal and action/praxis.

Transformation of Education in Nigeria and its Current Global Trends
Transformation of education is any planned change in the way a school or school system functions, from teaching methodologies to administration. Its benefits include; increased competitiveness, employment, economic development and citizenship, and social cohesion (Moran, 2012). No doubt, different countries in the world transform their education for various reasons. In the case of Nigeria, we can talk about the 1969 National Curriculum Conference which according to Okparaugo (2021) is the foundation of modern Nigerian education. The conference reviewed the existing goals of Nigerian education with the aim of identifying new goals for the country’s education at all levels. Likewise,
another significant and relevant transformation of education in the country was that of the introduction of Universal (free) Primary Education in 1976 and the establishment of more federal universities, polytechnics and colleges to boost the nation’s manpower. Likewise, Anuforo (2013) stated that in order to achieve the goals of Education for All (EFA), Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Universal Basic Education (UBE), a number of reforms and innovations were introduced by the Obasanjo administration (1999 – 2006) through the Federal Ministry of Education. The reforms during Obasanjo’s regime featured public-private partnership in the management of the federal unity schools in Nigeria, restructuring of the Federal
Ministry of Education and some of its parastatals and passage of Education Reform Act in 2007.
Fast-forward to 2011, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria initiated a Transformation Agenda which the Federal Ministry of Education corroborated with a Four- Year Strategic Plan for the Development of the Education Sector (2011- 2015). These strategic plans in education have engendered an expanded role for education as an investment for economic, social and political development; an aggregate tool of empowerment for the poor and the socially marginalized groups; an effective means of
developing the full capacities and potential of human resources as well as the development of competent work force through the acquisition of practical life skills relevant to the world of work as a veritable means of developing sound intelligent learning societies fit and relevant to the 21st century.
However, the sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic three years ago which consequently led to the closure of schools around the world deepened the pre-existing global learning crisis. Makinde, Adetokun and Hunpegan (2021) reported that the closure of schools in March 2020 affected over one billion students in more than 180 countries in the world. Upon the drop in the spread of the pandemic, schools reopened for academic activities but with varying damages to the sector worldwide. Among these
problems are: increase in out-of-school children, distortion of curriculum implementation, building
walls instead of bridges between teacher and the student. As a result, international organizations like United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF),the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), and the World Bank made radical and urgent calls for transformation of education to heal the wound caused by the pandemic in the sector. The transformation of education globally is tagged RAPID meaning:
Reach every child and keep them in school Assess learning levels regularly Prioritize teaching the fundamentals Increase the efficiency of instruction, including through catch-up learning Develop psychosocial health and wellbeing.
As Anuforo (2013) explained, transformation of education is often influenced by some factors like shift in societal/national philosophies and goals. For instance, the goals of education in Nigeria as stated in the National Policy on Education (2014) are: development of the individual into a morally sound, patriotic and
effective citizen; total integration of the individual into the immediate community, the Nigeria society and the world. The goals also include provision of equal access to qualitative educational opportunities for all citizens at all levels of education, within and outside the formal school system. The policy further stated other goals as inculcation of national consciousness, value and national unity; development of appropriate skills, mental, physical and social abilities and competencies to empower the individual to live in and contribute positively to the society.
Another factor that also influences transformation of education is manpower and professional needs. It is obvious that educational policies (1979, revised in 1981, 1988 (3rd Edition), 2004, 2007, and 2014) are formulated from time to time in order to produce through education, the desired manpower such as teachers, lawyers, engineers, doctors, nurse, bankers, factory workers, civil servants, miners etc. This is
leveraged on the fact that a highly educated and skilled labour force is a great asset to nation building.
Technological development significantly influences education transformation (Anuforo, 2013). Owing to Obanya’s (2020) submission that technology has had profound influences on people’s lives in general and particularly on education. It has created a one-world scenario with real-time information flow encouraging easy sharing of ideas, fashions and products across geographical boundaries. As a result of this great
impact, it has necessitated the formulation of new national philosophies and innovations. Likewise, the desire to catch-up with the advanced countries of the world in science and technology prompts Nigeria to embark on reforms in education, which is described as an instrument per-excellence for effecting national development (NPE, 2014).

Achieving Transformation of Education through Critical Literacy
In this study, our focus is on how to achieve the five RAPID key policy action on education transformation by the Global Education Recovery Tracker Survey (GERT 2022).

R: Reach Every Child and Keep Them in School:
Global Education Recovery Tracker Survey (GERT 2022) put it that ensuring the world’s children, particularly the most vulnerable, return to school is essentially not only for education but also to address social challenges such as early marriage, early pregnancy, child nutrition, child labour and mental health. Countries showed their commitment to return children to school: at primary and secondary education levels, at least half of countries reported taking measures such as automatic re-enrolment and community
mobilization campaigns to address disengagement from school, as well as cash transfers and subsidies to address economic hardship faced by families. A true and deep ‘reach all’ effort is imperative for education systems to shift from recovery to transformation. Governments can eliminate barriers to education for vulnerable and marginalized groups by targeting specific policy measures to identify and reach those who are still excluded and have been left behind. This includes ensuring that the right to education for all is not only fully captured in national legal and regulatory frameworks, but also effectively enforced. Critical literacy could help in retaining students through its fundamental roles. That is, students through critical literacy will see aspects of themselves in the curriculum and this will definitely be an attractive means to bring children’s lives into the classroom. It gives the student a sense of belonging particularly by engaging their thinking, guiding their thinking, extending their thinking and reflection. Through critical literacy, students will see school in another dimension because they will gain perspective by understanding education or learning in a different way.

A: Assess Learning Levels Regularly: Emerging data from countries around the world show that learning losses due to COVID-19-related disruptions are real and disproportionately distributed. As children return to school, understanding their current learning levels, needs and contexts allows teachers, school leaders,
system managers and policymakers to make informed decisions about instructional approaches, assessment practices and other related policy measures for learning recovery and better outcomes. Through critical literacy, students’ ongoing development is examined. It often allows examination of ideas, and requires one to synthesize, analyse, interpret, evaluate and respond engagement to study. It is a process whereby students’ question, explore, or challenge the power relationships that exist between two
knowledge paths.

P: Prioritize Teaching the Fundamentals: Education transformation will entail reviewing learning objectives, content relevance and corresponding time allocations; producing the necessary educational materials; and using lessons learned during the pandemic as building blocks for the review, design and strengthening of evolving curriculum during crisis and non-crisis contexts. As it is generally observed, critical literacy is an introduction to the democratization of culture, a programme with human beings as its
subjects rather than as patients, a programme which itself would be an act of creation, capable of releasing other creative acts, one in which students would develop the impatience and vivacity which characterize search and invention (Education for Critical Consciousness). From the forgoing, through critical literacy, teachers will teach students from cultural backgrounds that are very different from theirs. This will address concerns that affect the lives and self-perception of some students (Galbraith, 1967).

I: Increase the Efficiency of Instruction: a much smaller number of countries is implementing proven measures to catch up on missed learning, such as extending instructional time, providing tutoring programmes and using targeted instruction. To support teacher performance, more than 70 per cent of countries implemented policy measures on structured pedagogy and teacher professional development on the effective use of technologies. Ensuring education transformation requires countries to adapt new policies and financing for strengthened licensing and accreditation schemes, as well as modernize pre service teacher education curriculum to include supervised field teaching, induction and mentoring. To increase the efficiency of instruction as an aspect of education transformation, the teacher must see critical
literacy as a pedagogical tool that empowers and encourages students from being oppressed. Likewise, critical literacy advocates that teachers’ instructions must include cultural contexts. Teachers’ instruction must engage, guide and extend students’ thinking. Through critical literacy instruction, children move beyond comprehension into thinking.

D: Develop Psychosocial Health and Wellbeing: To transform education, school systems must monitor, address and prioritize learners’ and educators’ mental health and psychosocial wellbeing. A whole-of-society approach, involving collaboration across sectors including education, child protection, health and
nutrition, will be needed to ensure children, adolescents and youth receive comprehensive services while education systems build better going forward. This item, developing psychosocial health and wellbeing, could be achieved through critical literacy. Through critical literacy, a higher order process could be developed to appraise information of relevance to health. It will aid awareness of issues, participation in
critical dialogue in decision making for health. It will aid students to reflect upon health determining factors and processes and to apply the results of the reflection into individual or collective actions for health in any given context.

Conclusion/Recommendation
The relevance of critical literacy in transforming education has been adequately reviewed in this study. It is seen as a kind of literacy (words rethinking the world) that connects the political and the personal, the public and the private, the global and the local, the economic and the pedagogical for rethinking our
lives and for promoting justice in place of inequity. Its application in curriculum content area advocates that diverse students’ cultural knowledge should be used to build curriculum. Competitiveness, employment, economic development, citizenship and social cohesion, which are the hallmarks of education transformation, could best be achieved through critical literacy. This study therefore recommends that critical literacy should be included in education transformation in order to change
inequitable ways of being and problematic educational practices. Critical literacy has real-life effects and real-world impact on education. As a result, educator must leverage on its usage to the fullest.

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