Date: 2016-07-25

A don, Dr. Adesina Abiodun Olubitan, has frowned at the current low standard of primary education in the country, saying that the establishment of primary school was targeted at crafting a sustained development from the grassroots. He added that it was designed to advance the fullest development of the capacities of every child.

Olubitan stated this while delivering a lecture titled "The Morality Of Providing Quality Primary Education: A Wake-Up Call To The Stakeholders", during the end of the year party, graduation and prize giving day of Zion Baptist Schools, Benin City Road, Ilorin. According to him, in the bid to nurture the fullest development of each pupil, primary education should, "provide a rich and luscious environment in which the experiences of children will be most educative."

Olubitan who is of the College of Humanities, Management and Social Sciences, Kwara State University (KWASU), Malete, established that the prevailing low standard of primary education in which children have been conditioned to passive receptacles is most unsatisfactor, calling on schools to brace up in preparing pupils for the rigours of life.

According to him, this is because "the classroom should be a sort of laboratory where children discover, test, and find out things by active participation."

Olubitan who established that stakeholders in the education sector include Gogernment/employers, teachers, parents and students concluded that these stakeholders are culprits in the current low standard of primary education in the country.

He therefore implored these stakeholders to be alive to their various responsibilities and see it as an obligation.

Speaking with the Herald reporter at the end of the programme, Olubitan described education as a fulcrum on which effective economic participation hinges. He stated that since education is an essential tool for socio-cultural as well as economic survival in the 21st century, teachers must be well motivated by prompt payment of their salaries.

The graduation and prize giving ceremony featured cultural dance, rendition of rhymes and poems, playlet and presentation of certificates and gifts to deserving pupils and students.