The secretary-general of the Counselling Association of Nigeria (CASSON), Professor Emmanuel Awoyemi has advocated the professionalisation of members of the association, as a germane tool to enable the association to restore the social order for the repositioning of the nation’s economy.
He noted that the Nigeria Institute of Counsellors, will soon come into fruition, just as he urged the counsellors to ensure that they acquire the necessary skills and training that are pivotal to self-fulfilment and social order.
Awoyemi made these remarks while speaking at the opening ceremony of the 2020 annual conference of the CASSON, Oyo State chapter, with the theme ‘Counselling as Instrument for self-fulfilment and social order,’ which was held at the Lead City University Conference Centre, Ibadan, on Tuesday.
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Earlier in his welcome address, the vice chancellor of Lead City University (LCU), Professor Kabiru Adeyemo had urged the participants, particularly the counsellors and stakeholders to see the conference as an avenue to deliberate on the need to use the profession to bring about self-fulfilment and social order in the country.
He stated his belief that CASSON as a professional body could revamp the country’s economy by bringing about social order.
He, however, reiterated the varsity’s commitment to the association’s cause, saying, “the institution knows the value of counsellors and their impact in the society, hence the reason Lead City University was the first private university in the country to establish a Guidance and Counselling Department.”
He also acknowledged the fact that the dean of Faculty of Arts and Education of the institution, Donald Odeleye, is a professor of guidance and counselling.
Speaking on the theme of the three-day conference, the chairman of the Oyo State CASSON, Professor Ola Ayankeye, said that counsellors are agents of change in the society and must always exhibit those characteristics at all times, especially in nation-building.
He, however, appreciated the Oyo CASSON members in building a formidable association that is duly recognised across the country.
In his remarks, the chairman of the occasion, Professor Oyesoji Aremu, the immediate past director of the distance learning centre, University of Ibadan, who was represented by Dr Bayo Oluwole, said that the panacea for many problems in Nigeria is self-fulfilment and social order, nothing that the two work hand in hand.
A dean from the Department of Counselling Psychology, Tai Solarin University of Education, Ogun State, Professor Abosede Ewumi, who presented the lead paper at the conference, emphasised the need for counsellors not to relent on their jobs in improving the quality of life of people in the society.
She said that “counselling is practical about helping speciality and fundamentally about helping people.”
In his own address, the dean, Faculty of Arts and Education, Professor Donald Odeleye who took the skill training presentation, urged participants to be unrelenting optimists in pursuing positivism.
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