…bill to set standard and regulates Christian education in the country
The Senator representing Adamawa Southern Senatorial zone, Rev Yaroe Binos Dauda has led a detate on a bill for an act to establish the national council for Christian Education.
Binos who has sponsored the bill along his counterpart colleague representing Plateau Northern senatorial district, Sen. Gyang Istifanus Dung while debating it at the floor of the senate chambers, said the Bill was read for the first time on Wednesday 5th April 2023.
According the Binos that the Bill intends to establish a regulatory body that will set standards for Christian education in the country.
“Western style educational institutions were modelled after those in Great Britain, the colonial power in Nigeria, when modern education was first introduced. Intensive missionary activities in Nigeria began shortly before the middle of the 19th Century. The colonial government relied heavily on mission groups to organize and operate schools.
“These missionary schools have made a great impact and produced great leaders in the country. Mr. President, Distinguished Colleagues, let me use just one old missionary school to illustrate the impact of missionary schools on manpower development in Nigeria.
“The Baptist Boys High School Abeokuta was founded by the American Southern Baptist Convention in January 1923 with a student population of 75 and four teachers. The school grew to 400 by December 1946, and to 1,110 as of 2011-2012 academic year. Notable alumni of Baptist Boys High School, who have made their mark in Nigeria and on the global scene before and after independence in 1960, include: Obafemi Awolowo, Olusegun Obasanjo, Bola Ajibola, Moshood Abiola, Thomas Adeoye Lambo, Oyeleye Oyediran, Onaolapo Soleye and Sunday Afolabi, to mention just a few.” Binos said
He however worried that after the civil war the Federal Military Government took over all mission schools in the country on the grounds that education was the preserve of government and no longer a private enterprise. And Government also considered the policies and practices of the voluntary missionary agencies as being foreign oriented and irrelevant to Nigeria’s needs.
“The protagonists of the takeover also viewed these mission run schools as divisive in the sense that denominational schools encouraged religious and tribal bigotry and unhealthy rivalry among the citizens.” he added
Disturbed with the current sorry state of education, Binos while debating the bill at the hallow chambers to his colleague, he quoted an Elder Statesman and former National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Mr. Bisi Akande, who, at the commissioning ceremony of a block of 10 classrooms built in his honour by the Church of Nigeria Anglican Communion Osun North East Diocese in October 2016, to have said:
” The takeover of missionary schools by the military government altered the norm and morality that the missions had established in Nigerian schools and the society at large. Whether in Islamic Madaris or in any evangelical learning centres, all missionary schools known to Nigerians were institutions for moral instructions.
Binos continued to say that:
“The futility of the military Government’s actions of the early 70s have now been laid bare. Today faith based primary, secondary and tertiary schools are operating all over the country as it has dawned on Government that it has no capacity or resources to run schools.
This bill when passed into an Act, will:
“Ensure uniform regulations across the various Christian denominations as opposed to the present practice where there are various standards, rules and regulatory bodies;
“Set standards and regulate the balance between Christian faith and academic excellence for the benefit of humanity right from early age;
“Provide an option for parents to choose which schools they will send their children to with the assurance of good standards and quality of service based on the overstretched curriculum in the Government or private schools;
“And Provide smooth relationship between the schools and Board members as to the remunerations and tenure, thus moving the relationship from the informal to the formal.
“Mr. President and my Distinguished Colleagues, I urge you all to support the second reading of this bill. And in line with Order 76(3) of our Standing Orders, find attached the financial implications of the first year of operations of this Agency.”
