From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Registrar, Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), Prof. Olusegun Ajiboye, has accused parents of nowadays of failure to provide their children with the support and guidance required for proper growth and development.
That, he added, has been responsible for the moral decadence threatening to destroy youths in the country.
Prof. Ajiboye, who was a guest at RayPower FM’s virtual discussion on the topic: “Growing Moral Decadence in Classrooms and the Blame Game,” cast blames on parents whom he said, have relegated parenting responsibilities to housemaids and teachers.
He urged parents to stand up to the responsibility of taking care of their children, insisting that parents should not bring a child into the world if they are not ready to take care of it.
Ajiboye lamented that parents have become slaves to their children, and maintained his strong belief in the efficacy of corporal punishment in putting children straight.
He said: “I am a believer of the scriptural fact that if you spare the rod, you spoil the child. Children should be disciplined. I suggest that corporal punishment should be allowed in schools. The law recognises it.
“There are people to administer the punishment, the Principal or the Vice Principal. We recognise that there can be excesses, and that is the reason the law says that there are people that should do that. It is not for everybody. If we generally abandon the rod, what is happening now will be a child’s play to what will happen in the future,” he said.
Meanwhile, Prof. Mopeola Omoegun, a Fellow of the Counselling Association of Nigeria, disagreed with Prof. Ajiboye on the issue of corporal punishment, highlighting its negative impact on the children.
He suggested measures like denial and time out to help straighten a child, and also spoke of the need for parents to begin early to teach the children sexual education so as to enable them know and report when they are being violated.
She, however, encouraged parents to create time for their children and make them their best friends and confidants, noting that children cannot approach their parents to discuss issues bothering them unless the parents create time for them and make them their best friends and confidants.