By Ikenna Asomba

FOR many children whose desire for education would have been truncated due to financial challenges, Towergate Private Schools, Ipaja, Lagos has turned out to be their surest gate to the ivory tower through its scholarship programme for brilliant but indigent students.

Since 2006, the school has been sponsoring six pupils annually through their secondary education, with the first set of beneficiaries graduating in 2010. The second set completed their studies last session while the third set are presently preparing for this year’s WAEC and NECO- conducted Senior Secondary Certificate Education (SSCE).

These disclosures were made by the Chairman of the school’s Board of Governors, Alhaji Kamar’deen Owode at the grand finale of the week-long activities to mark the 10th year anniversary of the school.

According to Owode, children who are brilliant but can only attend public secondary schools at best are painstakingly fished out from churches and mosques within the neighborhood, and are subsequently enrolled at Towergate Private Schools where they are given qualitative education free of charge.

He added that some of the beneficiaries of this scholarship scheme are studying medicine and engineering courses in the universities. This philanthropic gesture, according to him, is also being extended to teaching staff. His words: “Apart from the school’s enviable welfare packages, it also gives scholarships to its staff to pursue undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in education, with no strings attached whatsoever.

It is not a case of sponsoring a teacher and making it mandatory for him or her to serve the school for a number of years or paying a percentage back. It is as simple as showing an admission letter by the teacher following which a cheque is issued once the school knows the amount involved”.

Professor Alaba Adenuga of Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye who delivered a seminar paper titled: Steps to Achieving Excellence In Education, as part of the 10th anniversary activities, sees the focus of the school on growth and improvement in students’ learning, students’ performance, students’ results and organisational capacity as very important, adding that the school must also commit itself to being accountable to its students and its community.

Parental neglect
Mr. Adebowale Adewale who is Commissioner 1, Ogun State Teaching Service Commission also spoke in similar vein. He averred that poor funding of public schools, indiscipline, parental neglect and the negative effect of ICT have done an incalculable damage to the nation’s education system, adding that school children must play major roles in the steps to achieving excellence in education.

He said: “School children must show total dissatisfaction with their present status, must have a vision, must have dreams fired up with action, exercise self-control and discipline, readiness to face challenges as well as having a role model whose mentoring shall help them structure their lives.

Speaking at the final day of the week-long activities, the proprietress of the school, Mrs. Funmi Owode recalled the humble beginning of the school 10 years ago and the initial challenges.

She said: “Towergate was inaugurated on 15th September 2001 with a decked ground floor of 12 classrooms and hall with 36 students. The original idea was to have a crèche and pre-school in a three-bedroom flat, but because God had a purpose for the school, we started a secondary school instead on two plots of land initially meant for someone else who rejected the land”.

Continuing with her testimony, she said that the school’s foray into education was met with stiff challenges from competitors, including the creation of artificial obstacles in the process of getting government approvals, but by the power of God, all the obstacles were surmounted.

The celebration of the school’s 10 years of achievements also brought to the fore the cordial relationship between the staff and the proprietors of the institution. While there are many teaching and non-teaching staff who have consistently worked with the school in the last seven to nine years, the pioneer principal of the school, Mr. Rapheal Ashefor is still with the school.

While staff who have spent between four and nine years in the school smiled home with fans and various sizes of refrigerators, Mr. Ashefor was given a Mazda 626 air-conditioned car for his dedication to work, loyalty and total belief in the school right from its inception.