By Cyriacus Nnaji
Founder/General Overseer of Christ Royal Family Church International and Proprietor, Royal City College of Education Iyesi-Ota Ogun State, Bishop (Dr) Tom Samson, has called on teachers to have the fear of God.
Bishop Samson made the call at the institution’s matriculation ceremony of the Sandwich Students of the Ekiti State University at Iyesi-Ota, Ogun State recently.
Royal City College is affiliated to Ekiti State University.
Tom Samson said that the institution is purely education and not a training ground for missionaries but stressed that teachers must have the fear of God to handle little children, “This is purely education where teachers are being trained, and moreover we inculcate in them that academic excellence, that moral; integrity is there, because those who will handle little children must have the fear of God, they must have moral, so that is one plus here,” Samson stated.
On challenges which education institutions are facing in Nigeria he said finance was a major challenge “Basically it is finance. You know education is very expensive, so the basic thing in our present nation has to do with finance, and moreover talk about facility, like electricity, many times you have to run most of these system with generator, bad roads is there as well,” he said.
Samsom also spoke about hard-work and integrity as the hallmarks of the college “Hard-work, integrity, truthfulness, when you come to an education institution like this, you need to be hardworking; we talk about academic excellence and integrity.”
Speaking further on how he felt about the matriculation of the institution, Bishop Samson said he felt good “I feel good that the school is progressing, by the grace of God by this time next year we will go higher.”
On the relationship between Royal City College and Ekiti State University, he said “It is amazing, you could see, if you look around we have amazing facilities, as a matter of fact, they scored us highest among the other affiliate institutions; we have all it takes to run a perfect institution.”
Also speaking on measures to ensure crime-free academic environment Bishop Samson said, “Prayers, we teach them, and that is why being a missionary environment it helps a lot, we are looking at teachers here, they are the ones to handle little children tomorrow, so we need to inculcate in them that fear of God. So that is what we are doing here, we don’t have issues of cultism or any other forms of crime, we don’t have it here.”
Provost of the institution and Director of Studies, Ekiti State University in affiliation with Royal City College of Education, Dr Remi Olufemi Ogunfunwa disclosed that the doctrine of the institution is to produce teachers that are embedded in the fear of God in order to reduce or eliminate all forms of disheartening behaviours from Nigerian schools.
He then advised the students saying “To all the matriculants, I want you to personally appreciate the mercy of God in your lives, for counting you worthy and granting you the privilege to be among those who are qualified to wear the matriculation gown because many of your contemporaries aimed to wear the gown but were denied by circumstances.
“In view of this, don’t be carried away or over excited because matriculation gown is just a ceremonial attire an evidence that you have been admitted into the university ‘to pursue’ a bachelor degree, which is a starting point of the four or five years race .
“To get the EKSU certificate you must be ready to dedicate and rededicate yourselves to your studies, you are not here for beauty pageant, cat-walking, sagging, wilting your trousers. You are here for thorough academic drilling and you must prepare to pass through the academic furnaces like Gold and allow people to search or celebrate your achievements,” said Ogunfunwa.
One of the newly matriculated students, Oluseyi Olayinka, while thanking the management of the institution for the efforts in running the school stated that the school is highly disciplined compared to other universities, in other universities they have freedom, not that we are not free here, but there are things you cannot do here being a Christian environment, there are some rules and regulations you must adhere to, but in other social activities, it is virtually the same.”
On what he felt the school can do to make their study much conducive he said, “They have actually tried but we still need more structures to accommodate students, the environment will be beautiful, it will make us feel, yes, we are in a University environment.”
