Afe Babalola harps on capacity building for teachers to develop nation’s education
Chief Afe Babalola, a legal luminary and Founder, Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti (ABUAD), has advocated more capacity building for teachers in order to attain the desired education development.
Babalola made the call on Monday at the 2022 ABUAD Staff Capacity Development Programme at the institution’s premises in Ado-Ekiti.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the programme had special focus on: “Modern Teaching Method and Pedagogy”.
Babalola stressed the need for university management and Governing Councils to place high premium on application of modern teaching skills through capacity building for the teachers.
According to him, this is necessary for Nigeria to attain a deserved quality and functional education.
Babalola said that the quality of teaching in the country had nosedived across all cadres of education, adding it is the most debilitating factor adversely affecting education standard in the country.
He said that the decayed and obsolete facilities were agitating the minds of many school administrators.
Babalola regretted that the quality of teachers in the pre-independence Nigeria were far more rewarding than what were obtainable currently in the country.
He, therefore, urged stakeholders to design policies that would compel the application of deserved teaching methodologies in schools in order to improve the qualities of graduates being churned out at every stratum of education.
According to him, the most essential factor for achievement of quality and functional education aside modern facilities is modern teaching.
He said that many of his generation would attest to the quality of teachers available in the years preceding independence in Nigeria.
“Teachers in those days were not only knowledgeable in the subjects they thought, they also deployed the best teaching methodology to ensure that knowledge was effectively transferred.
“Regrettably, thing are not what they used to be.
“I know that in states with qualified teachers, the story may not entirely be different.
“It is one thing to provide facilities, while it is entirely different thing for teachers to employ the best teaching practice and methodology in making use of those facilities.
“It is not enough for teachers to possess excellent qualifications in courses or subjects without commensurate ability to impart onto others.
“This is why teaching is a skill that must be learned, cultivated and nurtured,” Babalola said.
In his keynote address, Prof. Peter Okebukola, a former Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC), said that qualities of teachers has great effect on the attainment of quality and functional education.
Okebukola, who spoke on: “ABUAD: Leading All The Way”, praised the university for working in tandem with NUC’s recommendations.
He said the institution was already aligning with the minimum curriculum standard that would be released by the Federal Government soon.
Also, Prof. Smaranda Olarinde, the institution’s Vice-Chancellor, said that lecturers, as teachers of the future leaders, must be professional and practical-oriented, to make graduates relevant under the current economic system.
Olarinde said that ABUAD’s ranking as number one in Nigeria and one of the best 400 in the world must be enhanced further.
According to him, this is by sharpening the mental capacities of lecturers to be able to discharge their duties, by being innovative, skilful and ICT-compliant.
Contributing, Prof. Damilola Olawuyi (SAN), the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academics), said that the university had in 2019 designed a roadmap for the exposure of all academic staff to new technological innovation in Vogue in the teaching professional, to boost learning and research.
Olawuyi said the concept of e-learning has become a global phenomenon that no university could underestimate.
He said that this accounted for the expediency of capacity training to buoy ABUAD’s rating in teaching methodology.
