The British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Dr. Richard Montgomery has hailed UK-Nigeria government’s partnership for the recent investment in Nigeria education system, leading to the opening of a $15million Charterhouse Lagos School.
The school, which is located in Lekki, a high-brow area of Lagos State, sits on 70 hectares, (nearly 150 acres).
According to Montgomery, the school is modelled after the Charterhouse United Kingdom school, which has over 400 years of history, heritage and prestige.
The envoy said the school is an outcome of partnership between both governments.
He said: “Now this is all made possible by the fact that the UK government and the Nigerian government have been working and secured a deal last year.
“It sounds a bit technical; they’re called the transnational education guidelines. But basically it’s a framework that enables UK investment in Nigerian education institutions with the blessings of both governments that we help facilitate from the Department of Business and Trade in the British High Commission but also the Honourable Minister for Education Dr Tunji Alausa. We work with him and his team and the Nigerian Universities Commission on those types of partnerships and we are on the verge of announcing some exciting ones in the coming months. So that’s the wider picture.
“We are very conscious that Nigeria invests in education, you’re very exciting customers; but we genuinely feel we have a comparative advantage and we think that education is so important for the UK-Nigeria relationship because of the common language, because of some common values, because of the fact that we both have interests in each other’s countries.”
Speaking on one of the ideas behind the project, the envoy said: “And one of our concerns is that a generation of Nigerian children is going to Britain, and so many of them are not coming back. By spending their time at secondary school here, our hope is that they will stay and they will make a difference. And we very much talk about this as a vote of confidence in the future of Nigeria…”
“So Charterhouse is the first major British public school coming to Nigeria but there is at least one more that’s done a deal in Lagos. And we’re aware of three more British public schools that are considering.”
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The envoy said the idea is not to stop entirely international students from Nigeria going to the UK.
On his part, John Todd, Director of Education, Charterhouse Lagos School, said the school is for the whole education of the Nigerian child.
Todd stressed that the project, which is “a 150 million dollars investment” will help Nigerian children retain their roots.
He said: “It’s probably bad news for the UK economy. But for us, it’s good news and we think if these children stay in Nigeria, they will come back to Nigeria and that means a positive difference for Nigeria in the longer term. We really do believe that.
“We think it’s better than the universities. We think it’s better than anything anyone’s seen, and that’s helping attract world-class sport to Nigeria. We are building an 800-seat performing arts theatre in the next few years, and we think that will also be a first in Nigeria, and we’ll start attracting more and more music, arts, all these different aspects of life.”
He also hailed the role played by Lagos State governor, Babjide Sanwo-Olu.
“I think it’s always a challenge to start something new. We’ve had tremendous support from the local community and absolutely fantastic support from Lagos State Government. His Excellency, the Executive Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu came to open our primary school a few weeks ago, so we feel like we’re wanted in Lagos. And the demand for our secondary school has been phenomenal,” he said.
