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To those complaining about the high cost of private school education in Nigeria, the Regent Schools in Abuja have taken the issue to a different level. Its tuition fees are denominated in US dollars. To enroll a two-year-old child in the Regent Primary School costs thousands of dollars. The same condition applies if parents crave a place for their teenage children in the Regent Secondary School.

The school was established in 2000 and is run by expatriates and Nigerian staff. Located in the heart of Abuja — Wuse 3 — the primary school claims to expose children to a wide variety of learning opportunities to develop their individual skills and interests.

In view of the high fees, it is not a surprise that the students are mostly children of expatriates, governors, senators, ministers and others who have benefitted from the wealth of the nation.

The school is organised into three departments: early years, covering playgroup, nursery and reception years; lower primary, embracing Years 1-3; and upper primary, providing for Years 4-6. Each class is said to have 20 pupils, and every class has both a class teacher and a full-time teaching assistant.

To place a ward in the school, a non-refundable fee of $120 is required to cover application, entrance tests, interview and administration costs. A non-refundable school development charge of $1,200 is demanded on accepting an offered place. The term fee per child is $3,500 — excluding security and medical deposits and other administrative charges.

Findings indicate that the security deposit is used to pay for items or facility destroyed by students. The deposit must be replenished at the start of each term at an agreed sum. The medical deposit is used to take care of minor expenses if a student spends time in the sick bay or is administered medication due to minor injuries or sickness. Dental fees and other medical fees incurred outside of school are not charged to the account. The fee is not constant and may change annually. The sum of N20, 000 and above is payable as medical deposit per child.

Regent says its teaching staff are all qualified degree-holders and an ongoing programme of in-house staff training ensures that all staff are familiar with the British approach. It further says that a number of personnel are sponsored each year by the school to attend courses in Africa and in the United Kingdom.

The Regent Secondary School has about 25 ‘specialist’ subject teachers and it offers extra-curricular programmes in sport, music and drama. Students are placed in Years (Class) 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11. The term fee for Years 7, 8 and 9 is $3,200 while annual fee is $ 9,600. The term fee for Years 10 and 11 is $3,600 and the annual fee is $10,800.

The school offers boarding facilities and these do not come cheap either. The term fee for boarding is $2,667 and the annual fee is $8,000 for all classes. The school says fees may be paid in naira at the exchange rate to be given by the bursar, but a parent who spoke on the condition of anonymity told our correspondent that the exchange rate given by the school is prohibitive. “It is not advisable to pay in naira because the exchange rate the school would impose on you is high and discriminatory,” he said.

According to the parent, the various fees charged by the school put a hole in his pockets. He said that the unpredictable educational system in the country made him to enroll his children in the school so they could have the kind of education he wants for them.

The school says it places emphasis on the core subjects of literacy, numeracy, science and Information and Communication Technology with a daily reading time for all pupils. Majority of the students are Nigerians but there are other nationals like the French, Americans, Britons, Indonesians, Pakistanis, Chinese, South Africans, Kenyans, Cameroonians and Venezuelans.

The school offers its own curriculum, which, according to it, was modelled on the British National Curriculum. French is introduced from Year 1 and the children have weekly lessons in Art, music, design technology and Physical Education as well as French and others.

The headmaster of the school, Michael Robinson, declined to speak on the reason for asking parents to pay in dollars when naira is the legal tender in the country. In response to an inquiry sent to him, he says in a terse mail, “You should direct your enquiry, in writing, to the proprietress, the Regent School, Abuja. My role is to look after the education of the children and the well-being of pupils and staff.”

The FCT Education Secretariat Public Relations Officer, Tony Agunloye, describes Regent as one of the international schools in Abuja that were allowed to denominate their school fees in foreign currency, stressing that they have not broken any law by charging foreign currency.

He explains that the school is meant for children of diplomats and expatriates, adding that they are allowed to run international curriculum and a mix of local subjects that reflects Nigerian economy and culture.

“We also have such international schools in Lagos and they are allowed to offer international curricula in addition to local Nigerian subjects. This is because many of the pupils may want to further their education in foreign universities. The schools are allowed to charge dollars as school fees, but parents are not compelled to pay in foreign currencies; anyone can pay in naira if they wished,” Agunloye explains.

http://www.punchng.com/feature/nations-capital/schooling-in-nigeria-paying-in-dollars/

A 22-year-old Nigerian has emerged the best graduating student of John Hopkins University in the United States. He obtained a Grade Point Average of 3.98 out of a possible 4.0 to earn a degree in Neurosciences, SEGUN OLUGBILE writes.

A 22-year-old Nigerian, Emmanuel Ohuabunwa, has made history at John Hopkins University, United States of America. Ohuabunwa from Arochukwu, Abia State, has done the nation proud by becoming the first black man to make a Grade Point Average of 3.98 out of 4.0 to bag a degree in Neurosciences in the university. He was also adjudged as having the highest honours during the graduation that was held on May 24 this year.

For his efforts, he has won a scholarship to Yale University to pursue a degree in medicine. Besides, he has been inducted into Phi Beta Kappa Society, a prestigious honour group that features membership of 17 US Presidents, 37 US Supreme Court Justices, and 136 Nobel Prize winners.

According to Wikipedia, The Phi Beta Kappa Society is an academic honour society. Its mission is to “celebrate and advocate excellence in the liberal arts and sciences” and induct “the most outstanding students of arts and sciences at America’s leading colleges and universities.”

It was founded at The College of William and Mary on December 5, 1776, and thus it is the oldest honour society for the liberal arts and sciences and among the oldest undergraduate societies in the US.

In an online interview with our correspondent, Ohuabunwa, who was born in Okota, Lagos and attended Lilly Fields Primary School, Lagos, said he left Nigeria after his junior secondary school education at Air Force Comprehensive School, Ibadan, Oyo State.

“My parents moved the whole family when I was 13 years old. I was about to begin SS1 at Air Force, Ibadan. When I got to the US, I was enrolled with my age mates, which meant at 13, I was in middle school. I went to Fondren Middle School, which was in the middle of the ghetto. That was one of the darkest years for me because I encountered a lot of peer pressure. Some of the students, ignorant about Africa, bullied me and called me names such as ‘African booty scratcher’ because to them, Africans were dirty and scratched their butts all the time.

“Some asked me if I lived in mud huts and ate faeces for breakfast. I remember one day, when I was walking to the school bus, a boy came from behind and punched me in the face, called me an African and walked away. It took everything in me not to retaliate. I knew that God had put me in the U.S for a purpose and it did not involve fighting or selling drugs or doing the wrong things.

“My experience during that year gave me a thick skin. I learned to stand for what I thought was right even when the opposition seemed insurmountable. I also learned to look at the positive in all situations. Even though these kids were bullying me, I was still gaining an opportunity to school in America and nothing would stop me from making the best of this opportunity.

“The shocker was that the kid that punched me in the face was black. I would have expected the blacks to be nicer to me. Nevertheless, I don’t blame those kids because they were ignorant about Africa. All they knew about us was the stuff they had watched on TV or documentaries, showing primitive African tribes, living in the jungle and making noises like monkeys.

“In regards to the whites, there might have been some minor episodes but again I don’t blame them for it because it is a problem with stereotypes,” he said.

But in spite of this humiliation and racial prejudice against him, the first in a family of three was not discouraged. He faced his studies and was always coming top in his class. After he completed his middle school education, he passed the entrance examination to DeBakey High School for Health Professions. It was at this school that his interest in neurosciences and medicine started.

“By the second year of high school, we were able to interact with doctors, nurses and other administrators in the hospital. The more I learned about medicine, the more it felt like the thing God was calling me to pursue and by being in the US I got a lot of people to support me to do this. Even though in high school, I got to see first-hand what it meant to be a doctor. We studied advanced anatomy and physiology, learned medical terminology, and learned important skills, such as checking blood pressure, pulse rate, and many more.

“I knew I wanted to go to the best school in the US. I had heard that Johns Hopkins Hospital had been ranked the number one hospital in the US for the past 21 years and I wanted to be in that environment.’’

Worried that his parents might not be able to sponsor him to the university, Ohuabunwa purposed to work very hard. He did and when the result of the PSAT came, he performed so well that he won the National Achievement Scholar.

By virtue of this award, he received certificates of recognition from various organisations including senators from the Congress of both Texas and the US. He also received scholarship from the University of Houston; Rice University, Texas A&M Honors College and many more.

He had also won the Principal’s Award during the annual awards ceremony at DeBakey High School.

“During our graduation ceremony at DeBakey, I also won the Award for the Most Outstanding Senior Young Man and the student volunteer award for my volunteer activities in the State of Texas,” he said.

But his breakthrough came when he won the Bill and Belinda Gates Foundation full scholarship to any university of his choice. He worked hard and gained admission to Johns Hopkins University to study Neurosciences.

But why Neurosciences, Ohuabunwa said, “I studied Neuroscience, because I was fascinated with the brain, its control of our behaviours and how various diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, lead to a decline in its activity. I also minored in Psychology because I wanted to understand disorders in the psyche. What causes bipolar disorders or schizophrenia. I did not just want to label them as crazy but to understand what causes these conditions and how we can treat them,’’ he explained.

But what does he consider to be the missing links in the education sector of Nigeria when compared with that on offer in US, Ohuabunwa said unpredictable academic calendar, corruption, examination malpractice and inadequate funding were some of the problems confronting his home country’s university sector. These, he said, were absent in the US.

“There were a few problems with Nigerian higher education that contributed to our emigration in 2003. The first was the number of strikes that occurred in schools. It took my uncle seven years to graduate with a degree that should have taken him only four years. A second problem was the corruption. We had heard of people going into universities, because they paid someone to look the other way. I also heard of a few cheating scandals, where people would pay someone to take their exams for them or get a copy of the exam a few days before,” he said.

But is he saying that US university system has no such problems at all? Ohuabunwa said, “Although this sometimes occurs in the U.S, it is less common because of the strict security. I remember when taking the Medical College Admissions Test, test required before one can matriculate into medical school, each student had to get his fingerprints taken every time we entered and left the hall. The whole place was packed with cameras and security staff that monitored everything we were doing. The exam was computerised to make sure that no one saw the test before the actual date.”

Another difference, he said, is that America rewards hard-work while the system also emphasises on a balance between academic life and extracurricular activities.

On how he won the scholarship to Yale, Ohuabunwa said his 3.98 GPA in Neurosciences, and many awards he had won and God’s grace, contributed to his winning the scholarship.

“As at the time of my application for medical school, I had a 3.98 GPA of a 4.0. This made me the only black student inducted into the prestigious Phi Beta Kappa. I was also awarded the Becker Family Scholarship for being the most outstanding student in the Neuroscience major at Johns Hopkins University. Furthermore, by God’s grace, I took the MCAT and scored in the top five percentile.

“That, combined with my hours of volunteer service in different hospitals across the US allowed me to gain acceptance into every medical school I applied to, including Harvard, Yale, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, and Cornell. As the time came to make a decision, I had narrowed it down to Harvard and Yale. Both schools, I enjoyed visiting. Nevertheless, while my parents prayed, they asked God to give us a sign of what school to attend. A few days later, I received a letter from Yale Medical School, offering me a full ride scholarship for all four years. That was the sign from God,” he said.

But would he come back to Nigeria after the completion of his programme, he said yes.

“I am absolutely interested in the health care policy decisions in Nigeria. Because there are many changes that need to occur, I will not rule out the possibility of coming back after my studies, in order to join hands with the leaders to make these changes possible.’’

He added that his ambition is to become a medical doctor specialising in brain surgery.

“Two weeks ago, my grandmother passed away after a long battle with strokes. Even during emergencies, it was difficult for her to get to the hospital, let alone get treatment. This is a common theme not only in the health care system of Nigeria, but in different countries in the world, where the poor get neglected.

“Second, Nigerian hospitals lack the infrastructure required to compete with major hospitals around the world. It would be an honour to one day contribute to this transformation that is necessary for improvements in Nigeria’s health care sector,” he said.

He, however, advised Nigerian youths who have the wherewithal, to go abroad to study. Ohuabunwa also called on wealthy Nigerians to invest more in the education of the poor rather than in acquisition of material things.

Ohuabunwa, however, said that his parents, who he described as his greatest role models, contributed a lot to his academic feat through Godly training, counsel and guidance. He also did not forget the impact that his short stay at Air Force school had on him.

“I was definitely not the brightest at Air Force. At that time, I felt like I spent more time running away from seniors than focusing on my studies. Nevertheless, I learned three things at Air Force that have served me well in the US. I learned discipline, adaptability and resilience. These attributes helped me a lot in US,” he said.