The Director of Penckers Schools, and son of the founder of Daru Dawah Wal Irshad, the late renowned historian and linguist, Sheikh Mustapha Zuglool Sanusi, has called on government to regulate the freedom in tertiary institutions with a view to protecting the students from moral slide.
Zuglool who stated this during the graduation ceremony of the school held in Isolo, Lagos recently said private schools have laboured so well to train these future leaders but government controlled universities were not doing enough to sustain the standard and protect the children from various forms of moral decadence.
“Here at PENCKERS, we believe that every child has God-given abilities latent in them and that it is the duty of every educational institution to help them unleash it in the best ways possible. This is the ideal curriculum of study which recognizes students’ gifts and talents. Assessing and unlocking the potential of our students in the academic and non-academic areas of the curriculum, our students have all excelled in this academic year, 2022/2023 (1444 ah), thereby qualifying for receiving the Penckers school award of excellence. Hence, our recognition and presentation of the award of Excellence to all our students considering their differing areas of strength and competence. I, therefore, congratulate all my children for achieving this.
“For our outgoing Year 12 students, we have the honour of releasing them into higher institutions of learning. It is like releasing a white garment into a dirty bucket. We have laboured outstandingly to train these future leaders but our university environment is not appropriate enough to receive them.
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“The government that controls and regulates primary and secondary schools also controls the university, especially the ones owned by the government. Who says the university should not be controlled? Who says our children must have destructive freedom in these institutions? Who says students can live as husbands and wives without their parents’ knowledge, all in the name of freedom? Who says the shameless rich adults can go to these institutions like hotels and take our children out as if they were visiting hotels and prostitutes’ brothels?
“Fortunately, most private universities have reversed and corrected this abnormality; we are waiting for the government to do the same by properly regulating and protecting our children in these universities.
“Let our children be safe in the universities the same way they are safe in pre-tertiary hostels. Girls who are secured and well nurtured throughout primary and secondary schools are destroyed as soon as they get admitted into the university all in the name of freedom.
Zuglool also urged the federal government to sanitize the social media and make the internet safe for children, adding that the internet is a killer of the future of children.
“Furthermore, we would like our government to sanitize and make the internet safe for our children. If our children are automatically exposed to the internet, which destroys their lives, why do we need to be wasting our precious time in schools teaching morals when the environment is teaching them otherwise?
“The internet is the killer of our children’s future. It is against the law to steal money from the bank but the bank and the government have gone a million mile to enforce this law and protect the money with heavy security men and bullet proof vans. Our children and their future are worth more than billions of Naira and so our government should also go a million mile to protect them for us.
“If the Nigerian government can ban Twitter because of uncomplimentary comments on the government, why can’t the same government regulate the internet to protect our children from moral decadence and other evils resulting from children’s unregulated access to the internet.
“Countries like India, Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Canada, and France have regulated and protected their countries from the evil of social media by partial or total ban on the social media.
I will not be addressing this issue as the Director of an Islamic school nor will I be citing Islamic countries but rather the so-called advanced democracies in the world who are stepping in to protect children from the dangers and harm of the internet platforms.
“President Biden is doing just that with an executive order issued on May 23rd, 2023 that declares an “unprecedented youth mental health crisis” in the country, which he blames at least partially on the internet. The action was accompanied by an advisory from Surgeon General Vivek Murthy about the risks that social media may pose to children.
“They joined attempts by lawmakers to regulate the internet for children. Some states in the US have proposed and even passed laws that restrict what children can access online, up to banning certain services entirely. On the federal level, several recently introduced bipartisan bills run the gamut from giving children more privacy protections to forbidding them from using social media at all. Some efforts also try to control the content that children can be exposed to.
“In January, 2023, the state of Utah in the U.S., instituted lawsuits against social media companies for not adequately protecting children from the dangers of their platforms.
“Gov. Spencer Cox put companies like TikTok, Instagram and Twitter “on notice” for not doing enough to protect children.
“It is worthy of note that Governor Cox had already banned executive branch employees from using TikTok on state-owned devices.
“It is not too late for the Nigerian government to emulate the U.S. in regulating the internet to protect our children.
He thanked GTCO which he said has always been supporting the PENCKERS brand since inception, including CWAY Waters, Kellogg among others.
Zuglool also congratulated the Year 9 students for achieving another record breaking excellent performance in their just released Cambridge Checkpoint Examination as well as Penckers’ first set of Year 12 graduating students “for making us proud in their JAMB results and gaining admission into different universities within the country. Penckers will always live up to its words – Excelling here and hereafter!”
“We wish our School Administrator, Mrs Hamdalah Zuglool, Iya Ibeji International a happy birthday. Many happy returns inshaa Allah.
“To our Mentor and Founding Father, His Eminence Sheikh Mustapha Zuglool, may Allah be pleased with you, we will never deviate from that path of academic excellence you created. To the Governing Council, thank you for your strategic support. We would always be grateful to PENCKERS parents for their constant support and commitment to ensuring success in the school’s activities. The award-prize for the best among the best this year is all-expense-paid hajj sponsored by Isolo Local government Chairman; Honourable Adebayo Olasoju.- 2nd Runner-up Mrs Otun -1st Runner-up Mr AbdulAzeez and the Winner, Mrs Abiola Kifayyah Jimoh,” he said.
