Experts urge government to develop arts education in Nigeria

Government at all levels have been charged to show utmost seriousness in the development and re-integration of arts in Nigeria’s education system.

This charge was made by the‎ C.E.O of ‘D Karts Castle and also the Director of Operations, Centre for Development of African Journalists (CEDAJ), Mr. Ajibose Kayode.

Mr Kayode in an interview with DailyTimes ‎ said, the government need to believe in the art institutions they themselves invested so much to build, there are different non-governmental organizations coming up with initiatives to motivate the younger ones in growing and grooming of talents in arts, music, poetry, culture, drama and so on, the government should get involved, they should support these initiatives, they need to invest in the younger generation, they are this nations hope of recovery, their commissioned and contract works should go to the right hands not those who have no clue about what a palette looks like, who simply bribe their way up and bribe their way down then simply employ an artist to pay some change to do the job.”

‎He further expressed admiration on the fast learning ability of children and urged stakeholders at all level to constantly think outside the box with the creativity bestowed upon them.

“We are in the 21st century where nothing seems new, ideas, innovations, productions and so on but any form of creativity that solves a problem or answers a question will definitely make way for the creator after all the word of God says a man’s gift will make way for him but the children must be ready to think outside the box, children of now a days are very exposed which makes their level of intelligence outstanding enough to produce a solution driven artworks”.kayode said.

‎Also speaking with Daily Times, the CEO of Tabernacle of Talents, Abiola Ajao‎ expressed the need for children with talents to be discovered at an early age because the country has lost some of its best brains to the world. Thus, the need to organise projects to discover talents.

“When we had a project in year 2012 which was tagged discovering your talents, it was a combined talents discovery program which was not limited to a particular kind of talents but during the art exhibition I was amazed at the work of a 4 year old girl’s painting, it was beautiful and very meaningful after she explained her work. Since then it has been a futuristic dream to have a separated project to cover only art”.

She further stressed that, ‎we want to help them discover their talents, we believe that as the children see their friends or fellow students painting they may be motivated to try it out and if they do well at it that have discovered their talents.

“Those who have discovered their talents will begin to groom it because of the competition so that they can win. They will try to improve what they know in other to become better at what they do and ‎to also showcase their talents, if they are best at their talents but they don’t showcase it , it will rather be useless because no one will see it to appreciate it and it will not impact in the society and of course God want us to bless others with our talents by showcasing it to the world.

‎Both organisations, Tabernacle of Talents and D Karts Castle Artrick, recently organised an art competition for student at various secondary school.

The art competition was held at Glorypoint College, Sonola Close, Off Ijero Road, Ebute Metta, Lagos. Tagged‎ ‘Mix To Tell’‎.