…Wants History returned to school curriculum
From Jeff Amechi Agbodo, Onitsha
Philanthropist and industrialist, Mr Godwin Ezeemo has called on the Federal and state governments to increase the salary of teachers, as well as return history as a subject in the curriculum of schools in the country.
Ezeemo stated this recently when he was a guest teacher to Aquinas Model Nursery and Primary school Awka, Anambra State as they marked the Teachers’ Day.
In his lecture entitled ‘Success as it Relates to Hard Work,’ he noted that any nation without history is going into extinction.
He said the re-introduction of history into the school system would help the pupils and students to know about their past, the events, origin and activities of their grand-fathers and fore-fathers in order to compare, add or substrate or even imbibe and assimilate the culture.
The industrialist commended the teachers of the school for their wonderful work in teaching and impacting good moral and academic excellence to the children in all ramifications.
He also donated a school bus, 83 text books and 320 exercise books to Aquinas Model Nursery and Primary School, Awka, saying that the increase in teachers’ salaries would propel and motivate them to inculcate and impact more knowledge on the children.
Ezeemo while x-raying the secret to success told the children to put God first in everything they do, urging them to obey their parents, teachers, elders and read their books to be able to surmount every obstacle on their way through hardwork, which he said would bring success.
He said that teachers as moulder of the future generations and leaders of tomorrow should be well enumerated in order to prepare the children for future challenges, saying that teacher could lead children to success or mislead them to failure.
Speaking, the Parish Priest in charge of St. Thomas Aquinas Parish, Rev. Fr. Anthony Akabuogu thanked Chief Ezeemo for his gesture to the school and for providing similar gifts to other schools, saying that no amount of gift to children was enough.
According to him, “if we don’t invest in children today, we will regret tomorrow, no amount of investment on children is a waste. I am not happy over the situation of the youths in this country, after graduating from universities no job which has been causing social vices in the country”.
The Board of Governors member of the school, Prof Emmanuel Aforezilo said that the school has improved from what it used to be by organizing workshops for the teachers.
He noted that the success recorded so far could be attested to the training and retraining of teachers who were very current on the affairs and techniques of teaching.
Aforezilo, who commended Chief Ezeemo for his love for the poor, indigents and less privileged in the society, said that he was overwhelmed when he announced the donation of a bus and books to the school.
In her remarks on behalf of the other pupils of the school, Miss Chinenye Uzoigwe thanked the school management for organizing, saying that the school has always recorded first and its students ahead of their mates in other schools.
She also expressed happiness over the donation of a school bus by the guest lecturer who she said did not waste time to approve the request, saying that the bus would help the pupils to be coming and going to school on time.
Miss Uzoigwe noted that the school has no bus all these which made the pupils to be coming to school on foot and on bikes or tricycles which endangered the lives of the children, promising that the pupils would always make their parents and the school proud.
On the lecture, she said that Ezeemo has taught them the key and highway to success which they would continue to put to practice even as they grow up.