Very Rev. Fr. Boniface Duru is a Catholic Priest from Amaigbo in Nwangele Local Government Area in Imo State but working in Rome. He is the president and founder of Opera Don Bonifacio Azione Verde, an organization with a mission to train children through holistic education and thereby strengthen their capacity and capability and subsequently direct them to engage in reasonable developmental and leadership projects to improve the quality of lives in their native countries. The organization has established nursery, primary and secondary schools. The government has approved the organization’s university which is the highest platform for the holistic education. In this interview granted to The Qoheleth, the Priest spoke on the idea behind the project, the implementation plan and the benefits of the holistic education to achieving healthy and sustainable development in developing countries.
BACKGROUND TO HIS MISSION
“The mission is connected to my priesthood. I have always believed that the fruit of priesthood is seen in the action. St Paul says; “Show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” It started with my call as a priest and I gave it more attention as a systematic mode of life. I’m not the first person. There were people like St. John Bosco, and St. Francis who had done this in the past. We also find people who find reason to support the calling. As it started, we enhanced it and it grew into an organization and we registered it in the year 2000. It grew from two people and went up to 100 and we are increasing.”
COMPARING THE ROLE OF EARLY MISSIONARIES IN EDUCATION
“The time of the missionaries was different. Their actions were introductory. Their gospel is still the same gospel we are proclaiming today. We are carrying out what they were doing. We are only doing it in a different way. This is because we are addressing new people. The African man is trying to up the battle for himself despite the confusion. The time has changed but the message is still the same. We correct things where we can and go on. Methodologies have changed in doing the same old thing. We are trying to make it better because we live in a different generation.
My concept of education is holistic. This means taking into consideration the human aspect and how they are wholly. Academics is a method of education. Morals is also education. Some think education is only to pass examinations and come out in flying colours. Morals prepare students for good behaviour in the society. If they are educated academically only, they will lose the morals and ethics.
The missionaries in Onitsha and in Imo in Eastern Nigeria were supported then by their home organizations. Immediately after the war, these were stopped because of government intervention and policies. They left having a lot of obligations to their home mission. We do not have what it takes to give the same quality of education offered by the earlier missionaries. The mission schools today offer better services which children can’t get in the public schools. The church can give you the human resources but are constrained to maintain a standard of education.
The church provides the right human capacity development which was the same thing the missionaries were doing. Economically, they cannot sustain the academic system. So, for the parents to achieve the level of what the missionaries were offering, the cost would be high. There were no policies helping the mission schools. The government do not have financial provisions for private and mission schools just as they do in Italy and other western countries. These are same children who will run the future of the country and they need to be assisted.”
ON PROLIFERATION OF UNIVERSITIES
“The proliferation of universities especially in the private sector is created by the government. With the growing population, many children will need the opportunity to go to school. The quota system in education gives more opportunities for children in the North to be educated and reduces the opportunity for those in the South. The advantage of private university is to give more opportunities to these children in the South. It is not easy. You are running the same way the government is doing theirs and the approval is given by them and yet they want you to provide everything. So, to maintain this standard is not easy. The operators of private universities need the support of the government to maintain that standard required. The challenge is when they try to imitate the standards of the universities operated overseas. I don’t know why private universities should build a hostel and put an air condition in the rooms because the rich need to bring their children to the school. Or to have fridges in the room so that the rich can stock up their things there. This is what causes the high cost. At the same time, they are still competing with the federal government. This makes it too high to attend. Because the parents want to send their children to school at all costs, they have no alternative but to pay.
Some people take their children overseas. The cost of training one child overseas can train five to six children locally in a private university. Commercialization is not bad because it reduces the amount of illiteracy. And the operators have to raise the standards required by the parents.”
THE DIFFERENCE MADE BY AZIONE VERDE UNIVERSITY
“Azione Verde University will offer holistic education which gives attention to the whole human being. Education should not start with the university. The university should be the maximum point of education. We start from the nursery, primary and secondary schools before the university. The aim of our organization is to bring children up from the nursery, primary to secondary schools. They will be feeder to Azione Verde University. So, the culture we started with them at the nursery, primary and secondary schools will grow with them to the university. When they come out, they come out as fully made. They have a philosophy that has guided their education.
They have a system that have molded them morally and intellectually. So, you can now tell the society that you have come to take up a full society. The graduates will surely make changes in the society. This is the concept we have. I don’t know if other universities have it. They will depend on children from our school. Some other people may want to come into our system. But before they come in, we have to prune them and see their moral impact. This will give us what we actually started in holistic education. When these children come out, they are fully made and we not only prepare the brain, we also prepare the mind and body. That is why we keep the university for the formation of the children. We have built a chapel for celebrating masses for the moral formation of the children.”
SOLUTION TO POVERTY
“The only way to alleviate poverty in Nigeria is to train the children, educate them, form them and push them to the society. Basic education is good but children should be trained to work. That is why holistic education is important. You have to train carpenters and build sheds for them, train plumbers, electricians and give them both academic and practical side. The most challenging thing in government is having illiterates in power. Many members of the National Assembly are illiterates. Most members of the executives are illiterates. What they all want is money. They don’t know how to create money.
Education is the only way to alleviate poverty and create the salt of the nation. The contribution of the private schools is necessary. The private schools are also difficult. Parents should understand that most of these things said are exaggerated. But the public schools cannot cost more than the private schools. We need to bring down on the individuals in government that are running the government down. They hardly know how to manage government. Someone will tell them that the cost of building a road of N500,000 is N1million and they will accept. Most of our governors are only rich. They are not educated. Some of them have forged certificates. Bad leadership in Nigeria is caused by the illiterate class. The only solution is to train the children. There is no other solution. This can be done through holistic education. For instance, Robert Oppenheimer was a very intelligent scientist. He produced the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. At a point, he came back and realized that if he knew God, he wouldn’t have done that. So, academic education may not be all that is needed for the development of the people. The holistic education which is training a child academically, morally, and socially is the solution to poverty in the country. That is the only way we can save our country. It is like the case of Daniel and Solomon in the Bible. Solomon used natural wisdom to resolve the case of two women. He applied natural wisdom, not academic wisdom or logic.
The country is not good because it is dominated by people who are against this system of education. They may be trying in the East but not trying in the North. It has gone like that for many years. Unless we educate our children morally, we’d still have problems. The best way to solve the leadership problem in the future is to educate our children.”
ROLE OF THE CHURCH IN EDUCATION
The church has not abandoned education. The church has asked government to partner with her because education was not started by the government. Education was started by the church. You cannot take something away from someone who knows how to do it better. The government is bigger in finance because it has more money than the church. But in human resources, the church is better. The individuals run to the government to pull out the support for the church because the teachers and proprietors want to have more money otherwise the private and mission schools can be controlled.
All these teachers and professors were controlled in all aspects of education. Those politicians decided that what teachers want is government money and not the children’s wellbeing. In the country, teachers have gone on strike for months and used children to present their grievances. If you don’t give them money, they will not go to class. Sometimes, they may be right in their demands but in other cases, they are wrong thereby punishing the students. This is why the private schools in the country are prospering because teachers and professors have become politicians.
If the government partners with the private schools, knowing that they cannot reach the grassroot as the private schools, it will work well. Because of diversity in religion and tribe, government is not in support of education. The government tend to favour the Muslims more than the Christians because there are more Muslims in power more than Christians. If you go to Islamic schools, they only learn Arabic. If you are supporting all the children to learn Arabic, there will be no development.”
SUPPORT FOR FUNDING EDUCATION
“We have an organization known as Opera Don Bonifacio Azione Verde. Part of our project is education. I have presented my philosophy of education and it is what we are following. We have built nursery, primary and secondary schools. And now that the university has been approved, we will have a holistic education. There are friends and members who are interested in the project and are supporting us. The support may not be hundred percent but we are moving ahead with the project.”
LOOKING TOWARDS THE NEXT 10-15 YEARS
“There is always a difference in what one can make. A child trained with the right mindset can change the society. Some of these children trained in these ways will find themselves into the society. By the grace of God, in the next 10 to 15 years, they will also find themselves in positions of authorities and most of these things will change.”
ADVICE
“The first advice is to the school proprietors. They are the drivers of the children. They should use love and charity to educate the children. They should put the children in the right atmosphere to sit down and study. Not just collecting money from their parents and passing them in examinations and giving them preferential treatments because their parents are funding the school. Or even creating special centres for students. I will not allow children from our schools to be assigned to special centres. What they do there is to buy the papers and give them results. This will produce illiterates. So, the first advice I will give to the proprietors is to think about the future of the country. In one of my writings, I said; “Children are the future of a poor nation.”
As for the children, they are tabula rasa in the hands of their formators. Thay are empty until you put something in them. What you put in them is what they give out. They are not in charge of their future. Their parents are in charge of their earliest future, then their schools and peer groups. But before the nursery, primary and secondary schools, they must pass through their parents. That is how it works.”
