Archbishop Wants All-Inclusive Education Policy

The Archbishop of
Catholic Arch-Diocese of Onitsha, Most Rev. Valerian Okeke, has urged government at all levels to bring all children on board in their bid to provide qualitative education.
Okeke said this in Onitsha, Anambra State  after delivering his 2014 Pastoral Letter titled: “Catholic Education and National Development.’’
He said that education had become a very strong factor in the whole process of national development.
According to him, industrialisation, cultural evolution and religious awareness hinge on sound education.
“The right to education is one that belongs to all the members of the society. No member of the society should be excluded from the process of education.
“But it is to the parents that the specific decisions about the education of their children belong.
“While the society should also establish schools to ensure that all its members have access to good education, it should apply the principle of subsidiarity in the organisation of its educational system.
“This entails that religious bodies and purely private individuals should be able to establish and run schools with the assistance of the government.
According to him, this is to ensure that its citizens, who happen to find themselves in those schools, are properly educated.
“The government should fund all her approved schools in such a way that every child benefits equitably irrespective of the school the parents have chosen for the child,’’ he said.
The archbishop, however, commended the Federal and Anambra Governments for their commitment to the sustenance of standard and qualitative education in the country.
He appealed that more funding and changes should be done so that the country could easily meet-up other educationally-advanced countries in the world.