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Stakeholders in the education sector on Friday blamed poor parenting as a major reason behind the moral decadence currently threatening to destroy youths in the country.
Many of them said this while speaking during a RayPower FM’s virtual discussion on the topic ‘Growing Moral Decadence in Classrooms and the Blame Game’, on Friday.
They expressed worry over parent’s relegation of parenting to house helps and teachers.
Speaking, the Registrar of the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), Prof. Olusegun Ajiboye, insisted that parents have failed in providing their children with the support and guidance needed for their proper growth and development.
Ajiboye further frowned at the idea of parents shipping their children to schools and hoping that the teacher would perform some miracle.
“There is no school equal to a decent home, and no teacher equal to a factual parent,” he said.
He, however, enjoined parents to stand up to the responsibility of taking care of their children and maintained his strong belief in the efficacy of corporal punishment in putting children straight.
Ajiboye said: “I am a believer of the fact that if you spare the rod, you spoil the child. Children should be disciplined. Corporal punishment is allowed in schools. The law recognizes it.
“However, there are people to administer that; either the principal or the vice principal. We recognize that there can be excesses. 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.”
On his part, a Fellow of the Counselling Association of Nigeria Prof. Mopeola Omoegun, however, disagreed with Ajiboye on the issue of corporal punishment, adding that it has a negative impact on the children.
While suggesting measures like denial and time out to help straighten a child, Omoegun spoke on the need for parents to begin early to teach the children sexuality education “so as to enable them know and report when they are being violated”.
She insisted 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.
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