Uchechukwu Nnaike
“There is the urgent need to review and re-engineer the country’s curriculum and educational system, get our strategy right and inject short-term approaches into our endeavors,” the Osun State Governor, Gboyega Oyetola has said.
Oyetola was the special guest of honour at the opening ceremony of the third annual Fafunwa Educational Foundation conference and annual ceremony, jointly undertaken with the Faculty of Education, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, with the theme ‘Integrating Anti-corruption Crusade in Nigeria’s Educational System: Policies and Strategies’.
According to him, the theme is a booster to the efforts of the federal government to exterminate corruption which has become its number one enemy and a stubborn image burden.
The governor, who was represented by the Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Mr. Festus Olajide, enjoined the organisers of the conference to involve youths, that constitute more than 60 per cent of Nigeria’s population and as such any meaningful change must target them.
To achieve this, he said anti-corruption crusade should be integrated into academic and non-academic programmes from pre-primary to the tertiary level.
As a complement to anti-corruption clubs, intervention of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) and other organisations, he said schools should introduce students’ anti-corruption clubs, while Due Process Unit should also be introduced at the students’ union, family and departmental levels to enable student leaders to practice the act of probity, transparency, adding that due diligent should be taught in anti-corruption classes.
Oyetola highlighted some of the fundamental causes of corruption to include selfishness and acquiring things not needed, but what one wants; hence, he said the Omoluabi Philosophy of Education emphasises the age-long core virtues of the Yoruba African Societies: respect for others, aversion or hatred for stealing, respect for life long and responsible parenting.
