By Dada Ahmed in Lokoja.
A Polytechnic lecturer, Dr Akowe Joel, has called for a delibrate surgery of the education sector in Nigeria for optimal performance with faith-based educational institutions playing prime roles in actualising the goal.
Master Abdulqaharr Adeiza Ahmed,one of the JSS graduates, now in SS class receiving his certificate from the Proprietor of the school, Dr Theophilus Akinbode Ajala, during the occasion.
Joel of the Department of Public Administration, School of Management Studies,Kogi State polytechnic, Lokoja, gave the advice at the Graduation and Prize Giving ceremony of the Baptist High School,Lokoja, where he featured as the Quest speaker.
EIC, The Reporters, Alhaji D U Ahmed,(R), Master Abdulqaharr VP, Baptist School, Lokoja.
He spoke on”Re-imaging Secondary Education For Moral Armamentation And Self-reliance:The Role of Faith-Based Institutions.”
The academician therefore, advised management of faith-based educational institutions to expose their students to the knowledge of God, through regular teaching and admonitions.
Joel also called on the mission schools to ensure employment of qualified teachers charged with the responsibility of engaging in in-depth teaching of students and come up with programmes tailored toward implementation of consistent motivation of teachers to ensure their uninterrupted commitment.
This according to the lecturer is also with a view to ensuring morally sound and self-reliant graduates, equipped with education beyond literacy and numeracy in the country.
He also stessed the need for such schools to develop effective strategies for identifying and managing students’abilities and potential to expand opportunities for the emergence of their creativity vis a vis their teachers.
Joel said:” The core values of the institutions should be consistently guarded by adequate adequate enlightenment, sanctions or rewards in order to ensure consistent compliance
“All round learning should be encouraged through adequate provision of facilities to cover the core domain of learning.
“Parents should be partners with the school in the drive towards quality, through domestic management of their wards’ characters, behaviours and attitudes.”
According to the academic, the need for the faith-based educational institutions to set pace in moral and functional education became imperative to pull Nigeria out of educational colonial system of disarticulated,based on literacy and numeracy.
Joel argued that in meeting the needs of the post-colonial reforms, there must be a delibrate surgery of the education sector for optimal performance and ensure an educational system that laid emphasis on the use of brain and hand for self-reliance.
He said with self-reliance in place as the cardinal principle of the present the day Nigerian educational system, there would be a set of activities geared towards self-discovery and its application to produce graduates that could use brains and hands instead of looking for scarce white-collar jobs.
The quest speaker expressed concern that many graduates, including first class among them, had been chasing few available vacancies without much success because they were nl not trained to be self-reliant.
He noted that though the purpose of secondary education in Nigeria,as enunciated by the National Policy on Education (1988) was to produce “to inspire the students with a desire for self- improvement and achievement of excellence, this critical phase of child education chain suffered systematic violations from abuse.”
He added the inability of the country to attain lofty goal had also resulted in cultism, examination malpractice, sexual abuse among others.
According to him, to reverse the negative developments in educational sector of the nation, “mission schools are expected to define their roles within the context of scriptures, to serve as the light of the world to others.
The Proprietor of the school, Rev. Dr Theophilus Akinbode Ajala, said the school would soon commence IJMB programme in the state, as a means of expanding its activities and enhance its contribution to the educational developmnt of Kogi State.
He expressed satisfaction over the brilliant performance of the students of the school in their educational pursuits and called on them to increase the tempo.
Highlight of the occasion was the launching of a play, titled” Joseph’s Wedding written by Miss Beauty, a junior student of the school.
The students thrilled the audience with drama, chorography and cultural display, depicting the rich Nigerian culture and tradition as well as moral uprightness in the society while graduands and students who performance well in their examinations went home with prizes.
