The Nation Newspaper

Tag: school

  • Students condemn school closure

    To forestall breakdown of law and order, Ogun State government has directed the management of the Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU) in Ago Iwoye to shut the campus indefinitely.

    In a release by the Secretary to the government, Mr Taiwo Adeoluwa, the decision to close the university was taken in the overall interest of peace and order.

    The government said students threatened to foment trouble as they rejected all entreaties and concessions made by the government on their demands. The government advised parents to call their wards to order, noting that it would not tolerate any act that will disturb the peace enjoyed in the state.

    Some students alleged that they were flogged by policemen deployed in the campus. It was gathered that some students, who wanted to use Automated Teller Machine (ATM) on the campus, were beaten by the police.

    Adeniyi Shofoyeke, a 200-Level Pharmacy student, said: “I believe the total shut down is a misuse of power by Governor Ibikunle Amosun. It is clear he has disappointed the students. The closing down of the school is uncalled for because students have been peaceful in their agitations.”

    The Students’ Union president, Olusegun Ifade, said: “The closure is illegal, unacceptable and uncalled for. Our agitation has been peaceful. We understand that there are some people who want to hijack the struggle, but we are not political. This is purely students’ struggle. We also don’t want the security agencies on our campus. We call on government to re-open our school and withdraw the army of occupation on the campus.”

  • Legacy School clocks 25

    As Legacy Schools, Akowonjo, in Lagos rolls out the drums for its Silver Jubilee celebrations, the school is set to extend its yearly scholarships to more deserving pupils.

    It also made calls to the public to send their wards to sit for her entrance examination, which comes up on Saturday, September 13 at the school premises.

    Shortlisted pupils, according to the school, will enjoy a 50 per cent discount in tuition and cost of books.

    Already, application forms, which attracts 50 per cent discount, are on sale to interested candidates. It  closes tomorrow.

    According to Legacy Head of School, Sunkanmi Vaughan, the board of the school has approved special scholarship for children endowed in fields such as academics, sports, ICT and music.

    Speaking with The Nation, Vaughan said over the last 15 years, Legacy Schools have committed to offering scholarships to children in orphanages. However, the board of the school has approved same gesture to more deserving pupils as part of activities to celebrate its 25 years of existence.

    “In the last 15 years, we have remained committed to our scholarships, which are mainly for children of the Little Saints Orphanages which forms part of our corporate social responsibility. But as part of our 25 years anniversary the board (of the school) feels gifted children should also enjoy same privilege.

    “For now, we are targeting children from Year seven and above because we believe this category of pupils are a bit more matured and can do things quite independently. We are though, not yet specific on the number of children to be considered for the scholarships. However, for a start, we are not looking less than 50.”

    As part of the celebration, Vaughan said a standard hostel and two Olympic-size swimming pool would be commissioned next month. The school, he added, is planning its alumni reunion to coincide with the school valedictory service next year.

    Legacy School was founded in 1989 as an elite international school. Its mantra is anchored on ‘providing a premium education with strong emphasis on morals’. It is a Cambridge Associated School accredited by the British Council/Cambridge International Examination Board. Legacy Schools is also accredited for the Nigerian Curriculum by Ministry of Education at both state and Federal levels.  It is a boarding /day school, which operates various arms including crèche, preparatory and high school.

  • School ends maiden summer classes

    A secondary school Juilliard Academy based in Magodo GRA, Lagos has ended its one-month summer classes. It was attended by pupils from both Nigeria and abroad.

    At a party to mark their ‘send off’ of  the over 50 pupils,  some of them reminisced on their experiences, with some participants saying they wished the programme continued.

    The President of the students’ Representative Council, Kamsy Ibuoka, said: “We enjoyed ourselves. We were taught many subjects and skills. It was a fun-filled journey. We learnt something new which would remain in us forever.”

    Another participant lamented: “I don’t want to go back home. At home, we won’t have excuses. We will start doing all the work.”

    In her assessment of the session: The school’s Proprietor, Dr Maria Onyia, said: “I am glad you gained something and you do not want to go back home. You were very well behaved. I will miss you, though some of you will be coming back in September as our students.”

    She said they needed to rest before they return to school to offer 22 subjects at the junior secondary school level and 13 at the secondary cadre.

    Onyia, an educationist said some of the contents of the summer classes include: fields sport, carpentry, hairdressing, painting, cooking, car fixing, music, dance, aerobics, bead making, barbing, and crocheting.

    The event was spiced with performances in music, dance and plays. Prizes were also awarded to the best performing groups and pupils.

    Mrs Onyia said the problem with the education sector is not the pupils but ill-trained teachers. She decried a situation where non-education graduates are dumped into the system because they need jobs. Abroad, he said, such graduates even of education, must be certified before they can step into the classroom.

    Other challenges, she said, were: lack of an assessment structure and funds, urging the government to allow experts who can turn things around into the system.

    However, she praised the school’s curriculum. “I love the Nigerian curriculum. If I had my way, I would only teach it. The problem is that teachers are not trained to teach it. Also, parents want it; they ask if we teach the British curriculum,” she said.

  • Medical school alumni renovate hall

    The 1989 set of the College of Medicine University of Lagos (CMUL) has inaugurated the newly-renovated main auditorium at the Tafawa Balewa plaza of the school in Idi-Araba.

    The project was inaugurated by the provost, Prof Folasade Ogunsola, who was represented by the deputy provost, Prof Abayomi Okanlawon.

    She appreciated the alumni for remembering their alma mater 25 years after leaving the college, adding that the main auditorium was part of the infrastructural problem the college had.

    Underscoring the need for alumni investment, she said most renowned schools worldwide are funded from the contribution of their alumni.

    “Leave a trail; go to where nobody has gone, and leave a mark,” she said.

    The professor further urged the students to use the new hall for the advancement of knowledge.

    The college secretary, Oladejo Azeez, said the initiative by the 1989 set should challenge the present students.  He urged them to tolerate one another in order not to forget the institution when they graduate

    “We should not ask what our school will do for us but what we would do for our school,” he said.

    The leader of the set, Dr Felicia Bassey, who supervised the project, said it was not challenging to get her former classmates together for the project as they have kept in touch through the social media.

    She said they have greater plans for the college that would foster learning and research.  For instance, she said they plan to provide journals to help keep them up to date, and visit to give lectures to the medical students regularly.

    Dr Bassey said they were inspired to embark on the project because they were well prepared during their time, which helped them to function outside the country.

    She also urged the government to always listen to health workers.

    “The government should endeavor to always have meetings and dialogue with doctors and nurses in other to avoid strike actions” she added.

    Members of the set were conferred as alumni of the school.  Medical students showed their gratitude by presenting an award to the set. They, however, urged the government and school management to provide enabling environment for them, so they would be able to achieve greatness. The day ended with the students asking members of the set questions.

     

  • School marks silver jubilee

    It was with excitement that the management, workers, parents, and pupils of ABDEK Private Schools, Somolu, Lagos, celebrated the school’s 25th anniversary and 19th graduation and prize giving penultimate week.

    The event held the Banquet Hall of Somolu Local Government secretariat, featured musical and cultural performances by the pupils.

    They performed the Yoruba bata dance, Igbo atilogu dance and Hausa traditional dance to the admiration of the guests.

    Chairman of the occasion, Senator Anthony Adefuye, praised the proprietor of the school, Abdullahi Olugbenga for his foresight in establishing the school 25 years ago to meet the educational needs of children in Somolu.

    From 20 pupils in 1988, the school has 300 pupils.

    Mrs Yetunde Onanuga, director, Finance and Administration, office of the Special Adviser, Lagos State Ministry of Environment, noted that the school is one of the best schools in the council in terms of discipline and sound academic standard.

    She counselled the graduating pupils to make good use of the knowledge and discipline they got from ABDEK and be good ambassadors of the school.

    The proprietor, Abdullahi Olugbenga the cordial relationship that exists between the school’s management and the parents, is one of secrets of its success in the last 25 years.

    He also praised the workers for being dutiful, committed and alive to their responsibility.

  • Ondo to recruit secondary school teachers

    Ondo State government has announced plans to recruit new secondary school teachers to fill some vacancies.

    Already, the process for the recruitment is on to pave way for the employment of fresh education graduates from universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.

    The Head of Service (HOS), Mr Toyin Akinkuotu, made this known a news conference to mark the Public Service day in Akure, the state capital.

    He said this was part of the effort to improve education standard in the state.

    Besides, no fewer than 7, 847 public servants are to benefit from this year’s promotion in the state.

    Akinkuotu said the promotion exercise is part of government commitments to raise workers.

    Akinkotu, who revealed that no worker in the state is owed any salary arrears, added that the government would continue to provide training both at local and international levels to workers to develop their human capacity.

    While highlighting other incentives to include a befitting civil service complex and ultra modern public service training institute at Ilara mokin, Akinkuotu assured of the government’s commitment to more reforms in the state in line with global best practices.

     

  • Firm,school partner on data

    As part of continued efforts geared towards impacting the society through sustainable initiatives in the field of education, leading investment bank and asset management firm, FBN Capital Limited, initiated a partnership with the Lagos Business School with the inauguration of the LBS Bloomberg Room which houses Bloomberg terminals.

    The facility will help students in finance related disciplines gain exposure to the real-time market data tool.

    Speaking on the development, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of FBN Capital, Mr. Kayode Akinkugbe said: “The Bloomberg Terminal is one of the industry’s most widely used sources for real-time financial data and we believe that this resource will be very helpful to students in finance related courses by facilitating access to information. The donation of the Terminals is in keeping with our focus on facilitating sustainable initiatives that use education and technology as a catalyst for growth”.

    Mr. Akinkugbe explained that education is a core focus of FBN Capital’s CSR strategy and as such this initiative is in line with our sustainability goals.

    The donation of the Bloomberg Terminal has been a welcome development at the Lagos Business School.

    The Dean of Students, Dr. Enase Okonedo, made this known as she expressed her pleasure on the development.

    She stated: “Indeed, the Bloomberg terminals have been most helpful not just to students, but to faculty and research staff too. Getting up-to-date and reliable financial information for course assignments and research papers would have been more tedious without them. We are happy with the progress that the Bloomberg terminals have allowed us make, and are thankful to our sponsors, FBN Capital.”

     

     

  • NGO, firm renovate school

    NGO, firm renovate school

    As part of its community development initiatives, Assisting Caring and Empowering (ACE), a non-governmental organisation (NGO), in collaboration with Transcorp Hilton Hotel, has embarked on the renovation and fencing of Durumi II Community Primary School.

    The founder of the group, Miss Kiki Harrison, told reporters that the aim of the exercise was to provide an environment conducive enough to teaching and learning.

    She said: “We want to improve the lives of the children and we also want to give them gift that nobody can take away from them which is education.

    “We want to improve the lives of the children and we also want to give them gift that nobody can take away from them which is education.”

    Explaining further, Kiki said: “We cannot ignore the state of their learning environment. They have broken chairs, the ceilings are falling off and they have environment that is not conducive to teaching and learning. We have provided all the resources needed.

    “We have come to the school today to set things right by renovating the school and fence the school as well.”

    Also speaking, the Public Relations Officer, Transcorp Hilton Mr. Sola Adeyemo said it’s a gesture and commitment to improving the lives of people living in Abuja communities.

    He said: “That is why we at Transcorp Hilton and, in line with our mission to be part of the community where we live and work, we decided to come out as a team to associate with this local school. This is because we believe that the environment we live in has a lot of impart on the learning ability of students.

    “When we got to this school, we found a lot of dilapidated infrastructure. The floors of the classrooms were not cemented, the ceilings were falling off, the walls were not painted and the chairs are broken. Therefore, we thought that there is no better way to do this than in partnership with this charity group and to really take our time to improve the school’s environment.

    “Consider the fact that we are re-cementing the floors, fixing the ceilings, painting the walls, we are planting trees and flowers around the school. For us, it is not about the money spent but the impact we are able to make on the school and the students.

    “We are not going to stop here. We are still going to other community schools.”

    Responding, the Head teacher of the school Mr. Bitrus Zakoyi expressed his appreciation to the group and Transcorp for coming to the aid of the school at the very time they needed such assistance.

    Zakoyi, who regretted that some of the classrooms that have capacity for about 60 students and 45 students have no chairs and ceilings, said it seemed that government had forgotten the school.

    “We have only nine teachers tutoring 320 pupils. In some of the classroom, we have 60 pupils, in some classes we have about 45 pupils and in the remaining classes we have 35 pupils,” he said.

    He, however, appealed to the group to extend such gesture to other community schools having the same challenges.

  • School sport mythology

    We have over the years forgotten the need to properly invest in school sport programmes and to a large extent this act has made us to forfeit the derivable benefits of investing in school sport. We have youths these days without any form of locomotive skills and yet we expect that the country will continue to produce sporting stars that will excel in sports.

    While it is expedient for us to appreciate the effect of sports participation by students to the overall health and development of students one is constrained to note that we have jettisoned this noble venture and have decided in doing the things that doe not have any direct bearing to the development of sport.

    There is the need for us to begin to address the fundamentals that are militating against the achievement of these noble objectives. I am very much aware that there are lots of schools that had school playground and sport facilities in time past but today such is no longer in existence and where you still have in existence it is a mere shadow of its old self, meaning they are all dilapidated.

    We need to visit our schools if truly we want to address the issues that are confronting the participation of students in sports. We also need to have a definite policy on education that will be all inclusive and should be such that will spell out the basic sporting requirement for each school category.

    The Ministry for Education and the National Sports Commission should come up with a workable frame work that will see the National Sports Commission investing heavily in the development of sporting facilities across Government schools while the operational license of private schools should be given only to people that have the capacity to provide sport facilities to their students.

    While it is always very easy to criticise I must also say that we need to look into our sport policy and answer the following questions: what do we want as a nation in sport? What are our plans for sports related jobs in the nearest future? What is our national sport ideology? Of what significance will educated youths that are not physically fit be to a growing nation? There are many more questions that we can ask ourselves but the above are critical and pointers.

    Recently I was opportune to attend a seminar where the future of Africa as a hub for sport excellence was discussed and I noticed that from the various contributors it is confirmed that Africa is considered as one of the fastest growing economy in the world and as such a lot is been looked at by these experts that are currently looking at the cumulative value of such growth on sport business within the territory of Africa.

    However, most African countries have failed to see this glaring opportunity and are busy looking at sport from the perspective of being just a social duty rather than seeing sport as a fundamental catalyst for growth and economic advancement. Now how and where do we go from here? The truth of the matter is that we need to go back to the basics by re-engineering our school sports and ensuring that we have sport facilities that are up to date.

    Fundamentally speaking we need to be serious minded of the fact that the school setting is one of the basic sources of talent identification and we must be committed towards ensuring that we develop the various school sport programmes. I am aware that in South Africa there is a policy direction towards the development of sport facilities within schools and communities.

    I am also aware that there is a deliberate Government action plan to kit all students with sport wears and ensure that coaches are sent to schools why Physical Education is been encouraged at all educational levels and this in effect will produce the next generation of sports men and women in South Africa.

    Let us imagine that we have all schools that are properly equipped with sport facilities and sport instructors coupled with a comprehensive sport programme for the students and pupils all year round. I’m sure that such will boost the education and skill growth and acquisition of our youths to such an extent that we will readily have a pool of young athletes that will easily take the place of our aging athletes.

    Our sport managers should understand that the potential in sport is too great to be handled with levity we need a corroborative instrument of engagement between all ministries of sports and education in our various states and at the Federal level. With this, we would have addressed a fundamental problem that is currently steering us at the face.

    It is my hope and desire that we do the needful so as to reap from the inherent benefit thereof.

  • ‘Boko Haram attacks inspired us to go to school’

    ‘Boko Haram attacks inspired us to go to school’

    The terrorists did their worst, killing 42 students of the College of Agriculture, Gujba, Yobe State, but Abubakar Suleiman and hundreds of others were not deterred. He was among the over 300 students admitted into the college for the new academic year to pursue National and Higher National Diploma in various disciplines.

    They are anxious to acquire quality education  in order to be useful to temselves and their society.

    Suleiman told The Nation that he was inspired to go to school by the attack on the college and the Federal Government College, Buni Yadira by members of the Boko Haram group.

    He, who spoke to The Nation at the matriculation ceremony, captured the mind of his co-matriculants.

    He said, “after the attack on this school, some of us were really discouraged to go back to school but to me, the killing of those students is an encouragement for me, which is the reason why I am here today.”

    Suleiman may have spoken the mind of many of the students who appeared determined to succeed in life despite the challenge posed to their education by the current security challenges in the country, especially in the north eastern part of the country.

    However, the provost of the college, Mulima Mato appeared to be the happiest person.

    He said, “Despite the numerous challenges the educational system faces today in the state and at the college in particular after 42 of our students were killed in cold blood while sleeping in the dormitory on 28th September 2013, the college was able to stand up again in order to keep the hope of our students alive to continue their studies”.

    One lecturer and 42 students died in the attack on the college.

    There is no doubt however that the thought of going back to the school became such a nightmare for those who survived the ordeal. With this in mind, the management of the school temporary relocated it from Gujba to Damaturu where they are currently sharing a secondary school premises with two other secondary schools.

    Even though the Provost of the college is confident that activities at the institution are gradually picking up, he admitted that learning, for the students, has become very difficult without laboratories which cannot be relocated overnight. Practical sessions which form part of the training for the students are now impossible for the students to undergo.

    Even though it was not clear whether the practical equipment will be moved to the current site of the school, it was learnt that there are no immediate plans to move the school back to the permanent site since the area has remains volatile due to activities of Boko Haram. Nevertheless, the management of the institution is determined to keep hope alive and that explains the decision not to suspend academic activities despite the security challenges and the admission of 355 students to study both ND and HND programmes in Animal health and production, Agricultural technology, Forestry Technology among others.

    Addressing the students, the Provost, Mulima Mato asked them to concentrate on their studies and embrace the entrepreneurship studies aspect with all seriousness in order to learn a skill or trade in addition to their regular programme. He disclosed that out of the 355 new students,  158 student were admitted for the ND programme, while 197 were admitted for the HND programme. While saying that the institution was matriculating its 16th set of students, the Provost said that the National Board for Techincal Education gave approval to the institution to run HND programs after it was attacked by Boko Haram.  He was not unmindful of the fact that the attack on the institution is still hunting it. He said: “The college recent challenge was the downfall in its admissions due to the ugly incident that is hunting the college. The Yobe state government have been by our side in all these trying periods by supporting the college with all its requirements e.g. fencing the college perimeter, procurement of the HND accreditation equipments, providing utility and fire fighting vehicle.”