The Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council of Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko, Ondo State, Nigeria, Dr. 'Tunji Abayomi, has said it is best for the county to invest in the education of her citizens, saying, investing in education is investment for the very life of a nation and the welfare of her citizens.
Dr. Abayomi said this in his welcome address at the 6th Governing Council Retreat of Adekunle Ajasin University, held at Green Legacy Resorts, Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria.
He noted that it's best for the county to give education its pride of place. According to him, education has the power to change the total insight and foresight of any man and is thus a veritable vehicle to drive societal change.
As he puts it, "Investing in education is investing in the life of a nation and the welfare of her citizens. A nation should build good education so that the education can build a good nation. Education has the potential to heal more diseases in our nation than all the hospitals in the world, win more wars for her than all her armies, and feed more people than all the farms.
“Imagine what education has done to the living! Consider medicine, law, religion, art, science, commerce and industry and see how education has truly shaped them for the benefit of mankind. True, education needs wealth to grow, but because it is the greatest wealth of the nation, everything should be guided by the command of its spirit.
The Pro-Chancellor identified the inherent dangers and consequences of not emplacing sound and functional educational system, noting that lack of good education holds severe consequences such as poor leadership, poor followership, poor environment, decay or even death.
He said, "The consequences of a lack of good education can be traumatic for a growing nation. They range from poor leadership to poor followership and poor environment as well as decay and even death. We can see the transforming power of education by comparing the ways of the educated persons to that of the uneducated. Education improves the usefulness of men and women to the society and in this regard education is different from training which is limited in scope usually to a field of study. But both are crucial for a happy society. A nation without education is indeed a nation in utter delusion and darkness and the one with poor education suffers from a ravaging disease of poor growth."
The retreat, which featured lectures, and tours, among other engagements, was held to take effective stock of the University's challenges and progress on various fronts, effect organizational change initiatives, engender creativity and synergy around future directions and proffer workable options.
