Chinenye Egbo holds the record for the youngest lecturer at the Enugu State University of Science and Technology, (ESUT). She is currently 24 and an indigene of Enugu State. She is not your regular 24-year-old as she is instinctively brilliant and endearing.
Becoming a lecturer has always been the aspiration of Chinenye right from childhood. She tells BBC News Igbo in an interview yesterday, that she developed the passion of being a teacher when she was five. Her father had wanted her to become an engineer but she insisted on being a teacher. Her mother supported her ambition and encouraged her to aim for it.
Chinenye is the youngest lecturer in ESUT where she teaches and probably the whole of Nigeria. She bagged first class in Guidance and Counselling after which she proceeded to attain her Masters in the same field. It was after her Masters that she started applying for jobs and was employed by the Enugu State University of Science and Technology.
She is currently pursuing her doctorate and hopes to attain professorship in no distant time. Chinenye doesn’t only teach in the University. She also volunteers to teach in Primary and Secondary Schools pro bono, free of charge.
On student-lecturer relationship, Chinenye says she has a cordial relationship with her students. Some of the students are her age mates but they still respect and seek counsel from her. She discloses that the students confide in her and seek help from her in difficult aspects of their studies.
Although most of the students are always surprised meeting her as their lecturer for the first time, Chinenye maintains that she still humbles herself and teaches them accordingly. Aside what is in the curriculum, she also inculcates morals and spirit of hard work in them from time to time.
The erudite scholar mentions that before she began teaching in the University, she was into interior decoration. Lecturing doesn’t stop he her interior decoration job as she has many dedicated workers that carry on the work in her absence. She only supervises. As such most of her students see her as their role model and aspire to be like her. She also encourages them and wishes them the very best in life.
Also speaking to BBC News Igbo is Professor Charles Eze, the Acting Vice-Chancellor of Enugu State University of Science and Technology. He attests to the brilliance, sheer hard work and emulating qualities of Chinenye who distinguished herself in her field of study by becoming the overall best student of her set. This according to him made the University to absorb Chinenye and goes further in sponsoring her towards attaining her Ph.D.
Chinenye is an acclaimed international journal writer with lots of published articles to her credits. These critically acclaimed articles and book reviews will smoothen her journey into attaining her professorship which she prays and believes God for at a young age.Chinenye Egbo