A former Vice-Chancellor, University of Lagos, Prof. Tolu Odugbemi, has said only competent and meritorious teachers should be employed to teach learners.
Speaking in an interview with our correspondent, Odugbemi maintained that excellence should be prioritised above ethnicity and religion when recruiting teachers.
He said, “When we have teachers who are focused and not looking for extra business, life will be better. We should allow for merit and recruit well-trained teachers. And we should try to minimise this issue of ethnicity and religion.
“Performance should be the primary goal. If you do very well you should be given an award as a teacher or lecturer, irrespective of your tribe or religion. It’s a form of incentive. There was a time I was at the University of Lagos, we made sure that any department working very hard should be recognised. We gave the persons who had the best publications, laptops. We forget that if you train someone and the person is well-trained the person will build a building that won’t collapse.
“All hands must be on deck to allow merit to be the overriding factor. Pay whatever it is that is commensurate with what we have elsewhere.”
Odugbemi added that it was also important for parents and teachers to give children the right moral upbringing so that they would grow to become responsible adults.
“Even from the family level, parents should have the means to feed themselves. “And the mothers should have more time for the kids at home. Then we won’t have children who are not well-behaved when there’s parental supervision.
“Happy families raise happy children. And by the time they move to primary schools, they should have a decent environment in primary schools,” he added.
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