Foundation Advocates Sustainable Devt. Goal for Lifelong Learning

Stories by Funmi Ogundare

Walter Ollor Foundation, recently held its inaugural summit, as part of its drive towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal(SDG) four, which lays emphasis on inclusive quality education and lifelong learning.

The programme, which held in Lagos, with the theme, ‘ Enabling Success in People and Organisations’, saw panelists emphasising on having the right attitude, behaviour and circumstance to achieve success.

In his remarks, the President of the Foundation, Prof. Walter Ollor expressed concern that the country’s educational system is decaying from bottom up adding that from inception, the sector has been neglected.

“Students are no longer ready to learn or study, rather they want to bribe, they want to even get people to write examinations for them and this mentality has also crept into the university. Students want to join cult groups to succeed rather than read their books and the economy is the worse off for it.”

He said the foundation would administer a survey to all participants and youths, as a way of helping them achieve their mission and vision.

Emphasising on the foundation, which is now in its fifth year, he said the primary objective is to fund the Walter Ollor University which will bring qualitative education to the country and deliver things in a way that will enable graduates to have the problem solving skills and close cooperation with the industry.

“We are in the process of actualising this, we are working with the National University Commission( NUC) to get accreditation. We found out that the main reason why people are not employed in Nigeria is that most of our graduates do not have problem solving skills, and also the universities are a little far away from industries, and they need a lot of university- industry collaboration and that is what we are doing,” Ollor said

Asked about concerns over the number of universities springing up in the country, the professor of Economics said, “the universities are not enough, if you look at students who are seeking admission, you find that over a million students do not get admitted. Look at how many people are qualified to enter a university and how many were admitted, we have a data showing that only a few of them are admitted. So there’s need for more. We want access, which means anybody who wants education should have it.”

The Managing Consultant of StarTeam Consult, Dr. Sam Ohuabunwa described success as the attainment of goal and objective, saying, “If you set an objective and you accomplish it, you are confident of success. Success is relative, what could be success for me, may not be for you. It must be measurable and you must set a target. Achievement of that is your success, it should be a continuum , when you achieve a level of success, there must be new target to pursue.”

He affirmed that having the right kind of value also enables one to achieve success, while urging the youths to be determined, do a lot of sacrifice and defer gratification to achieve it.

According to him, “sustainable success is built, you have to do a lot and even go through pain , but what is important is that you must know where you are going. It will have effect on your goal. For every action, there must be an equal and opposite reaction, so in normal life, there is consequence for every action and what is important is that to succeed there are principles. “That is why I spoke about behaviour and attitude and values that can help one succeed. Behaviour is your ability to take certain decisions and certain principles to attain success.”

A Professor of Agricultural Engineering, and former Vice Chancellor, OAU, Ile-Ife, Michael Faborode said the discussion was coming at the right time, adding that we need to pursue our value system and ensure that the youths discover their purpose and redefine success.

“The bane of the country today is that we are not doing the right things that will raise accountability, therefore you see huge problems among the youths. The purpose of the summit is to see how we can help them since they are the hope of this country. We have to change our understanding of what we do,” he said.