Professor Mopelola Omoegun, Dean, Faculty of Education, University of Lagos, shares her life experiences in this interview with ADEOLA BALOGUN
As a management officer in the faculty, what were the challenges you faced during the strike?
We faced a lot of challenges. Basically, students were supposed to go on their teaching practice which is 12 weeks, and we had thought that the strike would not be prolonged, hoping that they would have enough time to face their teaching practice. I had sleepless nights on how to help the students at the same time not breaking the strike. So, I called the students and explained to them and my members of staff to deliberate on how to help out. I know it was wrong, the union said no, lecturers were not supposed to work and if the students failed to go for the teaching practice then, it meant they had to spend extra year. But I was lucky, everybody cooperated with me. With the Head of Departments, we were able to post students to schools and I met them in one of the private schools. That was how we were able to help and thank God we were proactive, nobody envisaged the strike would be prolonged and the students would have battled an extra year. Another challenge was with the sandwich students who were supposed to be working. We had to arrange outside the campus for them to receive their lectures even though lecturers were not supposed to teach. And if we didn’t take them up during their vacation, it would mean they had to wait for another year. But thank God, I had the support of my colleagues and we solved the problem, even though, the union was not comfortable with us. I got in touch with the state government to secure a place outside but near the campus where we were asked to pay.
How has it been managing a big faculty as education?
The faculty is the biggest and I tell people that it is the mother of all faculties. It is God that has been helping out and I tell people that I am what I am because of God. To manage the faculty is demanding but I have been able to cope. Again, I didn’t envisage much problem because I have been in education all my life and this has been my faculty ever since. I am more or less an insider as far as this faculty is concerned. After my Grade Two, this has always been my faculty; I had my NCE here, I had my first degree, the second degree, my doctorate, everything here. So by the time I took over as dean, I had studied what was on ground; where we needed changes and I had a focus that I really wanted progress. And by the grace of God, I think I have made a lot of impact in my one and a half years in office. That is why I totally supported the strike because of the state of facilities in universities. Can you imagine, the facilities I met on ground when I came for NCE in 1971, nothing has changed. The same classrooms we were using then are still being used in 2013. In fact, since 1971, we have not had any additional building in the faculty. I remember in my class then, we were only about 10 or 11, now we have about 200 in that same class. I tell people that I have soft spot for the faculty hall because that is where I had my wedding reception in 1975 and it was still the same when I took over as dean. We thank God, we have been able to renovate and upgrade some of the facilities. Some of our lecturers have been provided with offices and the hall has been renovated, courtesy of a telecommunications company. With the little we have been able to do, students and lecturers are happy and we thank God for that.
Was it your dream to be a teacher?
That is a very interesting question. As a growing child, initially I was sent to the boarding school but I think whatever I am, God made it. My father was not particularly happy to have girls and the first three children were girls. It was part of the culture then that people were not happy having female children. My mother told me the story that by the time she had me, my father was not happy with her. She said she had already been warned that if she had a third female, that might be the end of the journey for her in the family. She said when I turned out to be a female, she became apprehensive and that is why they gave me that name, Mopelola, meaning the number of female children is complete, no extra one. I always share that testimony with people that God turned my name around and to the glory of God, I am now complete in Him. So because we were girls, the first three, my father being a railway man, decided to send us to boarding school to make the best out of us because he so much believed in education. It cost a lot of money to do that in those days and that caused a lot of problem for him in the extended family. As it was the tradition, he was supposed to train his siblings but he chose to train his female children. His other siblings said he was wasting the money he was supposed to give them to train those who would at the end of the day end up in the kitchen. To them, he was wasting the money; he was close to us and he told us the story. One of them who wanted to travel abroad for further studies quarrelled with my dad because he didn’t give him money. My father said he opted to use the money to train his own children, that what he owed them was to train them to school certificate level. My father put us in boarding schools for primary, modern and teacher training education because he believed girls must be teachers. As he told me then, you were either a teacher or a nurse. It was my father who actually prayed that his girls would be teachers. A white teacher in my primary school discovered very early that I would be a great counsellor, but my father said he was not aware of such. My father got me a form for NCE in the University of Lagos and said if I passed, I was going to be a teacher. I went for the exam and out of all of us from Abeokuta, I was one of just three or so that passed and were taken. It was a big ceremony in our church. My father was very excited and that was how I came in for my NCE. I met one of my lecturers who was a counsellor and because of my performance, he said I should come back for my degree in counselling. I came back for the degree and went back to teaching and that was the time of (Lateef) Jakande when school was in shifts in Lagos. I used the opportunity to do my Master’s because I was closing by 11am for the morning shift. I did my Master’s and worked for a private school, Lagos Tutorial College as counsellor and registrar. When I got there, the students population increased so greatly and the school was transformed. I have always been a teacher but my strength is counselling.
Let me take you back, did your father eventually have boys?
Yes, the next two after me were boys and he was happy.
When you were coming to UNILAG for your NCE, what was on your mind?
I wanted to be a great teacher having been trained at the teachers training school and somehow, I loved teaching and helping people. In fact, I don’t think I can do any other job that I will enjoy other than teaching. When I started teaching after my Grade Two, I had some teachers who impacted my life positively like Dr. Omotoso; I loved the way he used to teach us and I emulated him a lot. I don’t use books when teaching and that was the way he taught. He would sit down and teach and talk to people without having to open any book. I was very close to him and he liked me and I had been dreaming to be a teacher like him. By the time I graduated, I came out in flying colours but the problem I had then was mathematics. I didn’t like it but our senior tutor encouraged me that I could not afford to fail maths because then in teachers training, if you failed in one subject, you failed all. And then, if you failed one subject, you won’t get full salary. With their encouragement and counselling, I got credit in maths and distinction in eight others out of 13 subjects. I loved teaching and I always told my students that, no matter how poor they were, once they attended my class, they would pass. My students used to struggle to make sure they didn’t miss classes and they all passed. Even the science students among them would not want to miss my literature class because of the way I taught.
Some teachers believed in the use of cane, what was your own method?
I have always seen myself as a counsellor, as a friend. A counsellor is your friend and confidant. I relate to students as if they are my friends and children. I draw them close to me and want to know the nature of their problem. I always tell people, if you want to be a successful teacher, you don’t make money your number one consideration. When I go out to help people, I don’t charge because my interest is that I want that person to do well. I would come to their level and organise free lessons for those I didn’t even know. When I was pregnant with my last child around late 1981, I was going to class during my maternity leave because I was teaching final year students and I didn’t want them to fail. I don’t believe in the use of cane; a good teacher earns respect, you don’t demand for it. If students love you, they will listen when you teach. In fact, there was an episode when I was a senior tutor in Government Boys College, to show you how close I was with them to help them, I didn’t use cane. There was a day one of them came to me and said, “Excuse me ma, I saw you yesterday around LUTH, you had a problem with your car; I wanted to wait but I didn’t wait, I just drove off.’ Then, my mother was in the hospital and that was the year she died. I said “why are you telling me?” He said, “just because I am looking at you now and my conscience would not let me be. I saw you but I didn’t wait because I was driving a better car.” So I said “congratulations”. He said this in the presence of other teachers and when they heard my response, they were fuming and said I should punish him for having the audacity to tell me this. I said I didn’t have to beat him because of that. I said I had a message for him and I called him to ask him who owned the car he was driving. He said it was his sister’s car and I then said well, the car that had problem was my own car and that the congratulation I said to him would be meaningful by the time he was able to buy his own car. I said you better go and face your studies to be able to buy your own car. More than 10 years later, I was driving from Oyingbo market with my son, I noticed a car pursuing me and I became disturbed and then began to accelerate until it came to same level with me. By the time I parked, the driver pulled up and came down. I saw a young man in suit and sweating. He said, “Mummy, can you remember me?” It turned out to be the boy and he said he had been trying to see me when he bought the car so that I would say ‘congratulations’ to him. He prostrated and said he would be happy to get the congratulations from me. I hugged him and he said I had to bless the car and we went to a restaurant around where we celebrated. That was the power of words. I don’t believe in the use of cane and I get better result.
What was giving you the push to go on because rewards for teacher had always been very discouraging?
I agree that people will say that teaching has always been looked down upon in terms of remuneration. They say teacher’s reward is in heaven, I don’t share that view. If you do your work well, you get your reward here on earth. That has always been my attitude. Reward personally to me doesn’t have to be monetary or material. I have done a lot of research on that and I tell people that there are three kinds of rewards; it can be social reward, it can be verbal or monetary (material). So when you talk of verbal, just ordinary ‘thank you’, ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’ are a form of reward and it is satisfying to me and I appreciate it. That is my own way of life; everything should not be money. By the time you make money your number one consideration, you get paid and that is the end. Even if my students give me presents, I want to know if they have started working. That is my own philosophy. I have a kind of fulfillment when I know I have contributed in moulding the life of a successful person.
Even with this kind of wonderful experience, can you recall one or two instances that you felt like quitting the teaching profession?
It has never crossed my mind that I wanted to opt out of teaching. Yes, every profession has its own ups and downs, I can recall one or two unpleasant experiences but then, I have never thought of quitting. I always see such as challenges and as a child of God, there is no challenge that is insurmountable. Getting a job as a lecturer here was very interesting. After my doctorate, I wanted to move from a private institution to the university but I was told there was no vacancy until a woman lecturer who liked me so much offered to resign to create a space for me. She was one of my assessors and she said she was very proud to read my work; she got an offer from UNESCO and decided to give up her post for me. The advert came out and I applied but some people, including someone that was married to my relative, had plans to bring in someone else from Canada. Even when I approached his wife, she said she also supported her husband and asked me to wait for another time. With prayers and determination, I gave my best during the interview and the two of us, I learnt, tied. At the end of the day, I was preferred because I studied counselling, the relevant course while the other man they wanted to bring in read psychology. It was not funny at all. The second episode was when my 23-year-old graduate son got burnt in a fire accident in our home. The fire incident happened the very night we wanted to celebrate his success when he graduated with a second class upper division. He suffered second degree burns and he spent more than two years in the hospital before he could recover fully. Despite the travails, I was still on top of my job and it took me a long time before I informed my colleagues of my predicament. Today, he is abroad doing fine.
Because of your background as a well guided girl child, did you have challenge when you wanted to choose a partner?
One thing they taught us in all girls’ missionary school on how to select a partner was that if any man came to you, look at him very well and ask yourself a question whether you would want to have a son that would look like him. If your answer is “no”, run away from him, he is not your man. If your answer is “yes”, then say yes. That was the missionary. But in the case of my father, he did not encourage his girls to have a relationship. He didn’t want to see any boy around you at all until you got to the university. I never knew anything about relationships and so it was a great challenge for me choosing a partner. I didn’t know much about my husband. I met him through one of my lecturers who was very fond of me. I was very young and active and so a lot of people liked me. He told me that he would like me to meet someone whom he thought would be suitable for me as a husband. I had so much regard for him and I was also afraid of him because he was very tough. He was always eager to help me until the final year of my NCE in 1974, when he said he wanted to see me and introduced my husband to me. He said he was his cousin from his hometown and I could not say “no”. My mind went back to what they taught us in school and I said I would not mind if my son looked like the gentleman. That was it. Again, my father had a law, once he saw you with a man, that must be your husband. As soon as my father saw the man, the next thing he asked was when I would be getting married. We got married the following year in 1975.
But was that the best way?
No, you know I am a counsellor. That is not the best way to choose a partner. God has blessed the marriage but then, we had our challenges. Number one, there was a wide age gap between us. For instance, my husband is not the outgoing person like myself. I like relating with people, unlike him. But thank God, we were able to overcome the challenges. Today, as a marriage counsellor, I tell people that by the time they want to get married to a person, they must try to know the person up close and know their likes and dislikes. Even when they talk about love, I ask whether they know the meaning of love. I tell them they can only know the attributes of love; love is a strong feeling, an emotion. There is also communication and a whole lot of other things to be considered.
What would you consider as something that shaped your life?
When I look back, I always give glory to God for the parents that I had, especially my father. Those who knew my father would tell you that he was a very loving and warm man. He was a disciplinarian to the core as a railway man, but he had soft spot for his children. He would do anything for his children. He put us in boarding school and he did not fail to monitor us. He would do anything anybody was doing for their children. There was a day he was going to the north by train and he saw some boarding students onboard the train. When he learnt from them that there was a break, he got off the train in the night and came straight to our school in Abeokuta to find out that we were not the only ones left in the school. In fact, there was nobody who didn’t know my father in all the schools I attended. When I wanted to have my babies, my father told my husband to always inform him so that he would be the one to be with me in the hospital during labour. After I might have been delivered, that was when my father would then call my husband. He was too caring to a fault.
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