Parents tasks Government To approve Policy Of Teaching Morals In Schools

In commemoration of the annual 2013 Children’s Day celebration, parents have called on the Government to review its policy to include the teaching of morals in schools, Some of the parents and children spoke on Monday in Abuja.

 Mrs Fransisca Oga, a producer with the Independent Television (ITV), said that most schools did not teach cultural norms and values because the children were taught in English.

 “I will like to blame government’s policy because in schools, you need to teach other Nigerian languages right from nursery through primary school and then secondary.

 “By so doing, morals and the way to relate with people will be very easy for the children. “I believe children should be taught Nigerian languages and make English a second language,’’ Oga said.

 She also stressed the need for parents to assist the society by instilling discipline in the children. She said that most parents, who want their children to perform better in the society should endeavour to inculcate good morals in them.

 “It starts from the parents; there are certain things that a child can learn by emulation. The parents must set a standard to live a life that is pleasing.

 “Parents must be able to lay down rules and stick to them and every rule should have a reason and defaulters sanctioned. “The bible says `train up a child in the way he should go and he will not depart from it’, this should be the principle through which homes should be governed,” Oga said.

 Mrs Mariam Ibrahim, a mother and housewife, stressed the need for the mother tongue to be taught at home.

 Ibrahim, however, solicited support from the government to keep children off the streets and engage them positively by ensuring they were put in school. “A wealthy man in Nigeria can spend N10,000 on pepper soup. But if that money is spent on the education of two children, it will go a long way in developing the nation.

 “Government, therefore, has a lot to do in keeping children off the streets, so as to solve the problem of child labour and abuse’’ Some children in the FCT also decried the spate of child labour in the country.

 Miss Jessica Onyebuchi, a JSS 1 student of St. Augustine Secondary School, Maitama, said that education was important for a child to be relevant in the society. She urged government to enact a law that would totally eradicate child labour.

 Onyebuchi stressed the need for parents and guardians to provide quality education for their children and wards. She said that most parents and guardians engaged the children in all kinds of child labour, ranging from hawking, trading to being house helps, which affected their studies. “It is not good to see children after closing from school still hawking and selling for their parents.

 “These children cannot concentrate in school and as a result their level of performance dropped in the school,’’ Onyebuchi said. Another student, Miss Chiamaka Aniagu, urged other children to embrace the Nigerian culture, because it helped to instil morals. Aniagu also urged government to protect children from the rising spate of child theft and child prostitution.

 At some parks and orphanages in the FCTt there was a large turnout of children in these places.

 Some of these places visited include, Mother Theresa Children’s Home, Monaliza Park and Heritage Home.