Lagos — The best approach to raising the standard of education is to give priority to girl-child education, the Superior General of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, Rev Sr. Geraldine MacCarthy has said.

Speaking at the international congregation of the Society, an international congregation of religious women, in Lagos recently, Sister MacCarthy said, "I will ask parents to give priority to the education of their girls so that as mothers and wives, they would know how important it is to educate their own children and girls. I think they have a right to education because it would lead to the development of the whole nation."

Once in three years, members of the Society from the European, American and African provinces meet in any designated part of the world to reflect on its existence as an educational group and ensure that its mission continues to correspond with its vision.

The lot fell on Nigeria to host the meeting this year and so for four days, the sisters of the society gathered at the Holy Child College, Lagos deliberate on topics such as, 'Education for Awareness', 'Sharing our Resources', as well as 'Our Hopes and Dreams'. The last day witnessed the silver jubilee celebration and final profession.

The Administrator of Holy Child College, Rev. Sr. Sophia Onuora said for the society to make the desired impact, the meeting was a very crucial exercise for the members.

Education for them, she said, is holistic. "We can't say we are concentrating only on morals or academics; everything is together, so we look at the educational system in its totality. At the end of the day, we expect that we would have more zeal to go back to our work and whatever direction or vision we come out with, we would go back to our various Apostolates and make our work better."

She explained that the Society's focus is to provide quality education in nursery, primary, secondary and tertiary sections to produce an all-round person, who would be beneficial to him/herself and to the society. "We are thinking of the product having an effect on the society, so that the people who would go into the society would be those prepared to make a difference. In performing this task, a thought is given to the environment because it does a lot to the human psyche, so we are constantly improving our environment to make it conducive for learning."

The Proprietor of Holy Child College and Archbishop of Lagos Archdiocese of the Catholic Church, His Eminence Anthony Cardinal Okogie said the gathering was conceived to rework the educational system through thorough processes. "They have to sit down and bring everything together, throw everything down and then try to look at the bits and pieces: What is the intention of the founder, are they living up to it, what were they doing before that is now lacking, how are they going to improve the students' knowledge?"

At the end of the exercise he said, they have to chart a way forward, particularly how to build on previous successes and to be able to address what was yet undone.

He said the event would also afford them the opportunity to exchange ideas. "If there is a system of education that the other sisters are applying in their various provinces, someone from here will go there, study it and see if it would work here."

He suggested that in addition to getting all stakeholders to a conference table, government should constantly hold fora where all stakeholders would air their views so as to have a unified system of education in the country.

said their basic thrust was the full development of human beings where ever they are. She said the major focus of the group was education, particularly education of girls because that was what the Founder decided then was the major need two centuries ago in England. "So we believe and try to make girls know that they have something to contribute and for those who know, to enable them make their contribution in the society."

According to her, The African Provincial Leader, Rev. Sr. Cecelia Nya said in 2004, the society had agreed as a congregation to do everything possible to strengthen their oneness, "one of the ways we felt we could implement this was to have an inter provincial gathering in our different provinces to help us widen our knowledge of one another and grow to appreciate one another, that way, we would be more effective in our mission of promoting unity in diversity."

She said the gathering was also an opportunity for education. "When we get together, we also educate ourselves so that we can educate others better."