Get Guardian on GoogleWife of the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor (Mrs) Folu Adeboye and former Minister of Education, Dr (Mrs) Oby Ezekwesili have tasked parents and stakeholders in Christian Education to train children to know God experientially and not by the Christian names they bear.
They disclosed this during the Summit on Kingdom Education, themed: “Revisiting Kingdom Education: The Role of Stakeholders,” organised by the Redeemed Christian Church of God Christ The Redeemer’s School Management (CRSM), held recently at the Youth Centre, Redemption City of God, Mowe, Ogun State.
The convener of the Summit, Folu Adeboye, while speaking on: “Why Kingdom Education Matters In This Generation,” decried that children who bear Christian names do terrible things and disrespect their teachers.
The Mother-in-Israel, who is also the Vice President of Christ the Redeemer’s Management (CRM), stressed that parents should cooperate with teachers and stakeholders in Christian education to do well in their critical assignments.
She frowned at parents who overpamper their children by giving them expensive phones, adding that in the process of hiding the phones the children get distracted while in the classroom.
“Again, they should let the children grow in the way God wants them to grow. We read Jeremiah chapter 1, where God sent his word to Jeremiah, and he was panicking until God gave him the encouragement, not to look at their faces,” Folu Adeboye said.
Urging every child to fear God, the Mother-in-Israel reminded them, that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.
She said: “Many of these children, they look down on the teachers and say, ‘who are you? Are you up to the standard of my parents?’ Once a child comes to the school, he/she must honour the parents and teachers. And let the word of the teachers, you know, be absorbed and the word of God we are giving them in the school also. They should meditate on it.
The convener recalled that God told Joshua to mediate on the word of God, day and night and by so doing he would prosper.
“Now, if you want to have good success, you must meditate on the word of God, day and night. This is very important,” she said.
The cleric reminded the stakeholders that God had set them over the nations and kingdoms to root out, pulldown and destroy things that are not of God.
Folu Adeboye said: “We are going to build and plant, because so many things are wrong. It will be a shameful thing that our children bear good names but they don’t know the meaning of their names and yet these children’s names are not connected at all.
She added that from Primary 1 to 6, stakeholders in Christian education should begin to use the manual of how to be a Christian, and ensure that every child is aware of the basic things about God and not the abusive languages they are known for.
“We need to play our roles by teaching Godly values, and not children using abusive languages,” she said.
The Vice President also expressed her concerns about the nation, saying so many things are wrong in Nigeria, including corruption and evil works of darkness. She called on Christians to rise up and pulldown all the mess hindering God’s will for the nation to grow.
“Every one of us, we have something to do and contribute to this nation. Parents are number one.
Many parents are not there. Some of them are afraid to correct their children. I don’t know why.
So, if only every one of us can come together, that will help. Raising our children is very important. And the success of this nation depends on us. Then everything will be okay, as everybody plays his or her own role,” Folu Adeboye said.
The keynote speaker, Dr Ezekwesili, while speaking on the topic: “The Mandate of Kingdom Education in National Transformation,” quoted Proverbs 22.6, and charged parents and stakeholders to train the children in the way of the Lord so that when they grow up they will not depart from it.
She tasked all stakeholders to produce people of good character, competence, and capability, which according to her, is the essence of kingdom mandate.
Noting that the 3Cs would produce excellence, the former minister of education stated that kingdom education must develop human capability and instill moral values.
She identified character as the core problem of Nigeria whether in public service and in other institutions.
“Competence and capability without character will mainly produce sophisticated corruption, such as what you see when graduates go to public office, and all they think about is acting like locusts.
Now, when you have that, it is the core problem of Nigeria as far as public leadership is concerned,” Ezekwesili said.
Ezekwesili, however, noted that character without competence and capability would produce significant ineffective or ineffectual leadership, stressing that the nation would be in a mess and people would die anyhow on the streets. She described competence and capability as important in education and nation building.
Ezekwesili also decried that a good number of children were out-of-school, recalling that UNICEF’s most recent estimate was 18.3m. She said during her period the estimate was 5.7 and, “In fact, I was so upset about it, and every measure that we could take, we put in policy measures and all kinds of approaches to get children, especially in the North, because that’s where the largest number of out-of-school children reside,” she said.
She added that they were able to move more than 500,000 children into the classroom, lamenting that years later, the population of out-of-school children grew to 20m.
In his closing remarks, Prof Michael Omolewa urged all stakeholders to work on the action plan produced by the summit, adding that the summit was conceived through the Holy Spirit.
Quoting John 14:1-3, Omolewa charged the stakeholders to ensure that the exercise for producing kingdom education is sustainable.
