A foundation, Critical Thinking and Social Empowerment has advocated for critical thinking in schools to end cultism and other anti-social vices in the society.
The foundation said, there have been cases of cult violence, and carnage, mind-boggling bloodletting linked to witchcraft, penis disappearance, blasphemy allegations in campuses across Nigeria.
It also observed that school children and youths constitute mobs that lynch alleged blaphemers, stone, torture or some times kill alleged witches.
The founder of the foundation, Dr. Leo Igwe stated this in Afikpo, Afikpo Local Government Area of Ebonyi State during the training of school teachers in the area to educate their students and pupils on critical thinking to eradicate anti-social behaviors.
He noted that although national policy on education aims to foster critical thinking and reflective inquiry, it is more of the case on paper, not in practice.
"It is pertinent to note the role of memorization in the different modes of instruction of children, in family/community schooling, in religious schooling etc. At a very tender age, children are sent to religious Quranic and Bible schools, where they are taught to recite and memorize religious texts.
"These modes of instruction have an over bearing influence on how school children think, believe, behave and response to issues in the society such as accusations of witchcraft, penis disappearance and blasphemy.
"There have been cases of cult violence, and carnage, mind-boggling bloodletting linked to witchcraft, penis disappearance, blasphemy allegations in campuses across Nigeria. School children and youths constitute mobs that lynch alleged blaphemers, that stone, torture or some times kill alleged witches.
"Meanwhile the national policy on education aims to foster critical thinking and reflective inquiry. But this is more of the case on paper, not in practice.
"In formal schools, instructions are steeped in memorization not interrogation or critical reflection of information. Rote learning is the mainstay of teaching and learning.
"Students are made to commit to memory what they have been taught and to reproduce the information during tests and examinations as a way to demonstrate knowledge and understanding", he said.
Igwe explained that 6,000 teachers have been trained in four states of Lagos, Imo Ebonyi and Oyo on critical thinking by the foundation.
