Education

Government needs to create a climate for talents and intellectualism to thrive through instituting merit as the basis for appointments.

Prof. Tunji Olaopa, the Executive Vice-Chairman of Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy (ISGPP), said this at the launch of ISGPP Book Readers Club in Ibadan on Wednesday, according to the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN.

Olaopa said the government needed to invest more in the funding of learning infrastructure like public libraries to restore education to its place as a pillar of progress in the society.

“We need to do more than celebrate our best and brightest as a news item; we need to invest in their talent and expand available opportunities for them to make contributions.

“We need much more friendly policies to support the local publishing industry and better author-publisher partnership within the framework of improved intellectual property protection policy.

“A man cannot achieve or ever discover the potentiality of what he is capable of unless he continues to learn only so can he make the most of him or herself,” he said.

In his keynote address, Dr Kolade Mosuro, the Chief Executive Officer of Booksellers Limited, urged the government to ensure that teachers from their training schools embrace reading as a core subject in their curriculum.

“We should encourage literary hour in various schools; let them read whatever they like, just let them read and with time they begin to sieve and they get to know that the book is a friend of theirs.

“A book doesn’t write itself, it is somebody’s idea and as a matter of fact, once they have discovered books, half of their schooling is done,” he said.

The event had in attendance a former governor of the old Western State, retired Gen. Oluwole Rotimi, the Maye of Ibadanland, Chief Adebayo Akande, the Chairman of ISGPP, Prof. Akin Mabogunje, and Prof. Olabode Lucas of the ISGPP Book Reader Club Steering Committee.