SchChat - School | St. Augustine College of Education, Lagos

Descriptions

As PROJECT T.I.M.E., St. Augustine’s College of Education was a joint project of the Nigeria Conference of Catholic Bishops (representing the Catholic Church in Nigeria) and the Christian Council of Nigeria (notably Protestant) for the purpose of Teacher- Training in Moral (and Religious) Education. Hence, the more popular name of the college was PROJECT T.I.M.E. The institution was a concrete demonstration of both the eagerness and the readiness of Christian Churches in Nigeria to entreat the various Councils of denomination as well as other religious groups (Islamic and others) in the country into a meaningful and peaceful co-existence. This co-existence was based on scientific dialogue, mutual understanding and co-operation. It was established in 1971 by the Churches in Nigeria to meet the crying need for the inculcation, growth and enrichment of moral and religious values in the lives of the generality of Nigerians, especially those of the youths. Administratively, therefore, St. Augustine’s College of Education was in the hands of voluntary Agencies. As an ecumenical institute, St. Augustine’s College of Education has a defining quality of an ecumenical institute in more than one sense. First of all, the members of staff- both academic and administrative- comprise persons from different Christian denominations as well as those of diverse religious creeds. They are Catholics, Anglicans, Methodists, Baptists, Pentecostals etc. and Muslims too. The student membership also reflects a similar character of composition. Secondly the academic programmes especially the Religious Studies programme, provide studies in the two major religious creeds in the country, Christianity and Islam. They are so arranged as to give any willing student the opportunities of following them without bias to the individual’s own religious creed. Aspects of Africa Traditional religion are also included in the curricula. There is also, in practice, a weekly inter-faith and inter-denominational religious service organized by the College. Thirdly, in a specialized sense of ecumenism, the College exhibits a National character, the membership of the College is drawn from people who, either as staff or student, come from different ethnic groups in the country. The College views this composition as a sort of control-experiment, the principal objective of which is to create some conducive atmosphere for a complete articulation of what it considers the natural principle of complementariness of individuals, cultures, traditions, religions and of academic disciplines, diverse as these might seem in any given society. The experimenting here lies in the College’s attempt to accommodate a mini-Nigeria where each person will have enough opportunity to learn of the other’s differences in culture, beliefs, values and personal idiosyncrasies and to know how to live tolerably with them. At the end of this, it is hoped that the individual who passes out of the College is considered sufficiently disposed to live and work with or among people anywhere in Nigeria, and by implication, anywhere in the world.