By Josephine Agbonkhese

A lawyer turned educationist out of love for providing top-notch education for children aged 1-12, Mrs Bolanle Adewole is the Founder/Director of Lagos-based school, The Learning Place (TLP) and also TLP Centre, a centre for children with autism and other related developmental disorders.

Bolanle who trained in Montessori education in the UK and worked in several schools in the US before relocating to Nigeria to set up TLP in 2004, reels out, in this interview, business strategies that have sustained and advanced TLP in the last 10 years.

YOU’VE operated this school in highbrow Lekki for 10 years; how has the journey been?

So far, we’ve seen over 950 children go through the school; for the Montessori school learning, after care and holiday care. We’ve had about 200 members of staff gone through us and we’re constantly training and retraining. So, you find that the staff that come to us, at the end of the day, end up saying “Truly, this is the learning place”.

This is because the name itself is not just for children but is a learning ground for everyone. We call ourselves a niche school because we give highly personalised care to children.
This, we do, through our Montessori teaching method which is a very practical way of teaching, focusing on everything; not just academics.

This is because education goes beyond academics. We aim at grooming world-class leaders, therefore, we also engage our children in a lot of external activities, even collaborating with schools abroad. Our children have ranked very highly and we always get good feedbacks from all those that have moved on.

TLP is not about me; it God’s school and that’s why we’ve continued to flourish. For example again, where we are presently is actually our own property and to the glory of God, we got that in four years of existence.

You got that through loan or what?
We didn’t require any loan, and that was because we always reinvested back into the business. You see, if you don’t invest back into your business and you expect it to grow to the next level, it never will. It’s important you understand that you always have to maintain standards and keep improving. The world is revolving and you cannot be left behind. Simply put, your business just stays the way it is. But the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. For example, we make it a duty to invest in our members of staff to make sure they are of international standards.

For many entrepreneurs, moving into their own property is always a major challenge. How and where did TLP start and what did it cost you to own your own property?
Interesting question! We started in 2004 with twelve children and two of them were children with special needs.

That marked the beginning of our work with special children, and six years later, TLP Centre was born to cater essentially for special children with autism and autism-related developmental disorders.
All what we used to start the business was actually donated by myself and other family members. But what I had going for me was the fact that I had worked in schools outside the country; we actually had just relocated to Nigeria from the US in 2003.

I was a pioneer staff at the last school I worked, so, that exposed me to starting and running a school. That was Franklin Montessori School in Washington DC. But with discipline and consistency in re-investing back into the business, we were able to offset some of those that supported us and also purchase our own property.

Let us talk about maintenance; you find that most school buildings and even companies come up looking radiant but soon begin to cry out for attention.

That’s one thing I’ve noticed in Nigeria; the maintenance culture is deplorable. People start a business, you attend the launch and the business place is nice and sparkling, but you go back within a year to find that the paint is already fading; the reception is beginning to rip around the edges, etc.

Training of staff

Those kinds of things should not be overlooked; you have to maintain regularly because it is cheaper to maintain than to totally replace when it wears out finally. In fact, if you fail to keep up with standards in any business, you soon begin to notice your clients begin to move to places that look cleaner and brighter. I worked for several years at schools in the US, and I learnt a lot.

So, at TLP, part of the best practices that we put in place is to always put back into the business, maintain and train staff, make them happy, take the children out to explore, and more.

(Cuts in)And your ‘typical Nigerian’ employees do not go away after those trainings?
Incidentally, they have not always gone away. I’ve found out that the ‘move ahead’ syndrome is the thing with Nigeria; we always want to look for where an extra N5,000 can be added to our pay.

So, at TLP, we try to beat other employers at their game by increasing salaries and adding more benefits for our members of staff so they understand that we really care. Apart from getting professional development, they get personal development as well and therefore stay on without being forced to.