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Dike Gabriel
Former Executive Secretary, the Nigeria Education Research and Development Council (NERDC), Prof Uduogie Ivowi, the Provost of Good Shepherd College of Education, Ogun State, Dr. Oluwayemisi Oyeyemi and Chairman of Good Shepherd Group of Schools, Dr. Bayo Oyeyemi have backed the Federal Government quest to professionalised the teaching profession.
The trio made the remarks at the inauguration of Good Shepherd College of Education (GOSCOED), Alakuko, Ogun State recently approved by the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE).
Prof Ivowi, who was the chairman of the event, described teaching as the oldest profession and observed that currently, it has been relegated to the background. According to him, there are many people who are teaching but don’t want to quality as professional teachers.
He tasked teachers to engage their students in critical thinking and also give them project to write which would involve research and evaluation of the outcome.
Ivowi revealed that as at December 2019, there are over 160 colleges of education in the country out of which private college of education are more than public owned institutions and tasked GOSCOED to produce quality teachers.
In his address, the proprietor of GOSCOED, Dr. Oyeyemi said the vision for the institution was given to him by God 41 years ago and that during the inspection visit, the NCCE officials said the college is taking off on a good note.
Oyeyemi assured stakeholders that GOSCOED would provide quality education and produced qualified professional teachers, stressing “the college has come to turn around the education sector.”
“In order to restore the lost glory of our education, we decided to come up with GOSCOED. We want to produce quality teachers to solve the problems of in the education sector.”
He disclosed that many of the governing council members came on board with their wealth of experience from the education sector and assured that GOSCOED will comply with academic requirements laid down by NCCE.
Provost of GOSCOED, Dr. Oyeyemi said apart from the deficit of teachers, a host of other problems plague the teaching profession such as teacher preparation programmes are inadequate with regard to access and delivery.
She explained that the major thrust of her paper is to make a case for parents, teachers, policy makers and other stakeholders to urgently seek ways to not only prepare students for the future, but also to prepare a future for them.
“Educators and researchers are exploring new ways of giving students more voice in how they learn. Instead of relying on textbooks and teachers direction, students now have to think critically about issues, and events, collaborate with peers and adults and make creative use of digital tools to communicate ideas”, she stated.
She said GOSCOED will address some of the problems by harnessing human and material resources to educate the youth for global relevance and also to assist learners develop relevant competencies for successful modern- day living.
Said she: ‘’It shall also be part of our pedagogy to raise educators who are not only academically proficient, but are also passionate, creative, emotionally intelligent, socially aware, culturally-connected and communicatively competent.”
The inauguration of GOSCOED was performed by Prof Ivowi. The event attracted former Vice Chancellor of Caleb University, Ogun State, Prof. Ayodeji Olukoju, Prof. M.M. Omirin, Oba Olufemi Ogunlewe and a host of stakeholders.
