The Provost, Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education, Oto-Ijanikin, Dr. Omolola Ladele, has urged Nigerians to disabuse their minds about the teaching profession.
Ladele said people should stop misconstruing teaching as a profession for those who failed to get their dream jobs elsewhere.
She argued that teaching, as a profession, should be held in high esteem as it obtained in developed countries.
Speaking during the matriculation of about 1,789 new students into the institution for the 2017/2018 academic session, the provost, however, said that despite the wrong perception of the people, teaching remained a noble profession that should attract the best hands.
Ladele said, “Teaching is not meant for dropouts. It is for those who are able to impart the right values, skills, knowledge and qualities that can build a nation into the learner, right from the basic level. There is no doubt that some students went to colleges of education as their last resort, perhaps, due to the misconception about teaching. But we always encourage them to do away with such thoughts.
“Right from the orientation programme, we assume that they will be trained and given a certificate that can serve them in the future, enable them to impact lives, mould them to become leaders of tomorrow and render services to the society, as a way of contributing their quota to the development of the nation.
“And by the time many of them are leaving, they always say they don’t want to do any other thing than teaching. So, in our little way, we encourage the younger generation to see teaching as a noble profession.”
