From Aniekan Aniekan, Calabar
Professor James Ejue, a renowned expert in Guidance and Counselling at the University of Calabar (UNICAL), has asserted that Nigeria is sick and in urgent need of counselling intervention.
He made this declaration while delivering the 145th Inaugural Lecture of UNICAL at the International Conference Center. The lecture was titled “Counselling from Divergence to Convergence: A Drive towards Harmony Restoration”.
According to Ejue, “I stand here to assert that the Nigerian society is sick and in urgent need of counselling intervention. This failure is majorly due to the failure to properly harness and harmonize our divergent backgrounds, worldview, challenges, spiritual inclinations, and expectations.
“This sickness is evident in individual lives, educational system, workplace, political space, and in the spiritual realm.”
He emphasized that pluralism, if not properly harnessed, leads to divergence with its attendant crisis. Prof. Ejue also explored the divergent educational crisis facing the country, stating that the lack of a clear philosophy of education has over time prepared a fertile ground for divergence in the implementation of the National Policy on Education.
Under these circumstances, both policymakers and implementers have been wobbling along with no guiding philosophy. He stressed that the present needs of the learner have to align with the perceived future drift of society, and the guidance from a counsellor is that the beneficiaries of relevant education should gain knowledge, skills, attitudes, behaviour, and values needed to engage positively with society.
Ejue maintained that divergence-induced crisis leaves a profound impact on the mental health of individuals, and it is the extent to which they are skillfully harnessed by a counsellor that creates productivity or otherwise.
In his words, “Herein lies the task before the counsellor to identify and harness divergent views to convergence with a view to harmony restoration.”
He also disclosed that Nigeria has reached a critical junction where learners have to be given prominent recognition as stakeholders in the education sector. The don warned against the danger of education losing its relevance and called to question the curriculum deployed in the 21st century, the teaching methods, and instructional materials.
Ejue stressed that the counsellor, as a prospector of talents, needs to wade in and help parents, learners, and the school system ensure that education possesses the relevance that meets the unique needs of the learners.
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