Don To Govt: Overhaul public education with Adventist model

A don and Professor of African History and History of Religious Education at Babcock University, Ilishan-Remo in Ogun State, Prof Abiodun Adesegun, has called for a comprehensive overhaul of public education in Africa to be anchored on the Seventh-Day Adventist (SDA) educational enterprise model.

Adesegun made the call while delivering the 42nd inau- gural lecture of the university, with the theme: “Seventh-Day Adventist Higher Educational Enterprise in Africa: Cleaning the Augean Stable in Public Education.” This was as he said that the components of SDA education model were time-tested and factual, as well as stands the chance of providing the needed succour to the almost comatose public education in the continent. According to him, the SDA educational enterprise model has a lot of ingredients from which school administrators across Africa, and particularly Nigeria could borrow to revitalise the system. “It is time to clean the Augean Stable by adopting and adapting approaches that could make positive impact on the state of education across the continent,” the don added, saying: “The SDA education, which is based on the Bible, the word of God, is a distinctive and unique approach to reality, truth and value.”

Adesegun, who also suggested that it was “high time they looked at what faith-based institutions are doing with a view to adapting what is relevant from the institutions, explained further that the Seventh-Day Adventist emphasises the teachings of the Bible and inculcation of spiritual and ethical values in all its educational institutions.

For instance, in Babcock University, a SDA flagship institution, Adesegun said there is a compulsory residency and chapel worship irrespective of religious affiliation, even as he added students of other denominations or religious affiliations are still allowed at fixed times like Sunday to worship in their own peculiar manner without let or hindrance. He noted that every student irrespective of discipline is required to register for and take a course on Life and Teaching of Christ in order to acquaint them with God. Besides, faculty, staff and stu- dents are expected to model Christ’s decorum in their behaviour, conversation, and dress code that is strictly implemented on campus, as students would be penalised for breach of these regulations.