It’s almost 10 years since the wife of the former president, Ibrahim Babangida and founder El-Amin International Schools died. Many years after her exit, her imprints still speak for her in many areas ELEOJO IDACHABA, in this piece, examines one of her legacies.
Not only was she noted for her Better life Programme for Rural Women through which many women were empowered, she was also noted as the first wife of a serving president to have reminded the womenfolk that whatever a man can do, they can do better. To that extent, she commanded a cult-like followership while she was alive. Until recently, the relics of her empowerment programmes still adorn many state and local government headquarters in the country. That was the worth of the late Dr Maryam Babangida, wife of Gen Ibrahim Ibrahim B. Babangida.
Even though she left the scene a long time ago, her memories still linger through her educational institution: El-Amin International Schools which she established in 1993. Today, the school, which at inception was only at nursery and primary school levels, now has a flourishing secondary arm while academic activities are expected to commence in the university as from the 2020 academic session. While commenting about the essence of the school in 1993, Maryam said, “One of the most significant decisions of your life will be choosing the best learning environment for your wards. As a parent, your child will be spending six years in either our primary or secondary school, therefore making the right choice becomes pivotal. This decision is made to affect their future and where you choose will greatly influence your child’s future. With so many private primary and secondary schools spread all over Nigeria, the question becomes why should EL-AMIN be the school that you prefer? The school encourages and promotes cultural values that are reflected in positive character, mental alertness, and moral uprightness. Spiritual growth is important in the school environment and this is sustained as the school has a mosque and a church. Academic excellence is at the heart of the students learning experience.” Since then, the culture has been sustained.
She left a policy of succession
While speaking with Blueprint about the secret of the school’s success many years after the founder died, Mr Nkama Vincent, the principal of the school in Minna said all kudos go to the founder who brought her son Mohammed, now executive director, in a manner that keys into her vision. “Honestly, I would give kudos to the founder over the way she brought up the executive director who is her first son; because one of the major problems in school administration is succession. The executive director is sound morally, academically, physically and emotionally, therefore very capable in running the school. When you engage him, you will have a robust discussion and experience on the nitty-gritty of the administration of an institution such as this. You can’t see any sign that the founder is no more.”
Qualitative education is our watchword
He said in his 25 years of teaching, it is only in El-Amin that he sees enrolment figure strictly controlled in spite of the financial gains. “The founder said the students cannot exceed 300 even though the carrying capacity is for 1,500 students. The founder doesn’t want rowdy classrooms but classrooms where teachers can identify individual students and know their weaknesses and assist them appropriately; so the teacher-student ratio is 1:8. When I came, I told the executive director that the school was underutilised, but he said the idea is to keep the vision of the founder alive.”
He noted that the school is now a brand consisting of nursery, primary, secondary schools and a university.
“The university is being constructed and would start running courses in 2020 just like the executive director recently announced at the Founder’s Day. The planners visited top universities in the world such as Harvard, Oxford, London School of Economics and Yale to assess their academic programmes; so in our new university, various faculties are modelled after different top ranked universities in the world.”
We monitor ex-students
Unlike other schools, El- Amin, he said, has a policy of monitoring whatever their former students do even after graduation; a development he said attracts many parents to the institution. “Our policy is to keep tab on what our former students are doing, where they are and what successes they have attained and we used that as a challenge to those that are here. Some former students come to talk to the students and they are always excited. Some of them in the university told us they were in the first class lists and we advised them to maintain those positions. We are doing this because we want to have good leaders in this country. Another reason for keeping in touch with our former students is to get new students because we have modern equipment. Our science laboratories are better than labs used by students in many universities.
We value our resource material
Highlighting this further, Vincent said “We have state-of-the-art facilities in every discipline including chemistry, biology and physics as well as in Basic Technology, Carpentry, Electrical, Mechanical Workshops and Visual Art Studio. The Home Economics and language labs are well equipped and we still have typing pool where we test the typing speed of students.
“Our Food and Nutrition, students recently visited one of the best hotels in Abuja and when they returned, they admitted that they were familiar with all the equipment the hotel uses. They also interacted with the best chefs,” he said.
With an array of teachers ranging from graduates with bias in Education to Masters Degrees holders and a few PhD, he says the school is akin to anyone else in the world.
“I have over 25 years of teaching experience because I started as a classroom teacher. Here, it is mandatory on all our teachers to have certificates in Education and those with PhD can move to our university when it takes off in 2020. We have a Continuous Development Programme where we run in-house training for teachers in addition to our training institute. We encourage teachers to do online programmes and during our annual appraisals, we assess them as well as carry out classroom observation,” he said.
The establishment of the secondary arm of the school in September 1995 was a product of direct response and natural progression from the primary school that was set up two years before. The brimming success of the primary school within three years of its operation served as a catalyst to the starting of its secondary with children from across Nigeria where there is the promotion and respect for cultural and religious values.
