By Tony Edike
ENUGU – The General Overseer, Amazing Love Assembly, Enugu, Bishop Amechi Nwachukwu has said that too much emphasis placed on paper qualification and certificate rather than acquisition of knowledge was the greatest scourge bedeviling the nation’s education sector.

Bishop Nwachukwu who spoke during the 1st graduation ceremony of the Amazing Love International Schools (ALIS), Enugu, stated that time had come for the country to assess people based on proficiency to check the rush on acquisition of certificates which many cannot defend.

“When you talk about educational decadence, it is not only about people graduating from institutions because they have paid money or people gaining admission to study after paying money for it. It is also about the emphasis which the system has placed on certificate and course of study before they can become somebody. Nobody is ready to consider proficiency any longer and therefore everybody wants to get the certificate.

“It is more dangerous when the so called certificate cannot be defended by those who got them. When you call the certificate holder a simple statement or write a simple essay for you, the level of grammatical error will not allow you make meaning to what he or she is talking about,” he told newsmen after the graduation ceremony of the school founded by his church.

Nwachukwu however stated that the problems in the nation’s educational system could be fixed by filling the gap created by the movement of professionals out of the system, prompt payment of teachers, providing learning facilities as well as
equipping public libraries to encourage reading.

According to him, religious organizations decided to venture into running of mission schools as part of efforts to address the societal and educational decadence, stressing that he was hopeful they would impact positively.

On criticisms over high fees charged by educational institutions owned by missions, Bishop Nwachukwu