At the University of Lagos, I was employed under the headship of Professor S. Adetoro whose sense of discipline was one to emulate. While some others… - Peju Layiwola

But my teaching is not limited to university students. I have straddled different categories and classes of people within the society. I have taught pupils and secondary school students, illiterates, barbers, mechanics, tailors, petty traders and welders, masons who need rudimentary skills in the arts to earn a decent living at community based workshops. In both spaces, I have had great fulfilment.

So we have these artifacts standing in our stead and showing that we had a very rich tradition that is enviable.

So, many times, universities are made to hire from the choices available, which may not necessarily be from amongst the very best. There is also the issue of assessment of staff for promotion, where premium is placed on the number of published papers and not necessarily the quality of the artist’s intellectual and artistic output. On the part of the students, a lot of them did not opt to study art. Their marks could not qualify them to study law or some other courses so they end up studying art. Therefore, in more than half of their school years they are distracted and wondering about the fate that has befallen them.