By Ayo Onikoyi and Dayo Adesulu

Revd (Mrs) Oyinlola Babalola, from Ekiti State is married to Bishop Adebayo Babalola of Flaming Sword Ministry, Lagos and currently runs Doveseal College, an upscale college situated at Igbara-Oke, Ondo State.

Irked by the dearth of history teachers in secondary schools, the educationalist, gives her views on how the unfortunate situation can be addressed in this interview and takes on the education sector as a whole.

Different things inspire different proprietors in setting up a school, may we know what inspired you to found Doveseal College?

We established Doveseal College when the Lord told us that there was need to go into secondary education to raise godly children. Also, the vision became clearer when we discovered that these days, we don’t have women that are full time housewives. Both husband and wife go out to work and most times, leave the children to be educated either by television, internet or house-helps. That is why we are having so many problems in our country. We therefore see this secondary education as a mission, as a calling, to raise peculiar people.

How would you assess the school and your vision in the past eight years?

To the glory of God, I’m happy, we are encouraged, we produced our first set last year and they did excellently well to confirm that the hand of God is in the school. All our students passed their NECO and WAEC exams. As I speak with you, all are in different universities. No failure.

We also have good record in our junior exams. Where other secondary schools are scared of doing NECO junior, we do NECO junior in our school and they always come out fine. On their spiritual lives, I can tell you that I am still in touch with them even when they graduated from our school. 90% of them fellowship on their campuses, 90% of them are in their campus church choirs.

The are some schools that connive with examination bodies to pass their students, does your school do same?

We don’t engage in examination malpractices. I am not aware of any examination body or staff coming to us to aid and abet. However, many parents have taken their children out of our school when they discovered that their children will not be indulged in any form of supervised examination. Our students do excellently well with their brain, not with any body’s assistance, but God’s assistance.

What is your take on the minister of education making French compulsory for primary and secondary students in Nigeria?

For me, it is a good innovation because in Doveseal College, French, English and Yoruba languages are compulsory subjects. For French, even if you are not going to sit for it, we expect you to learn it,because you don’t know where you will find yourself in the future.

Reasons for the compulsory inclusion of French is because we have neighbours who are French-speaking countries. Apart from that, French is also a universal language. French will open doors for graduates in external affairs. They can work there, they can teach there. If you remember, in the old days, Latin used to be compulsory, and it helped our fathers a lot.

If you research to some organisations or ministries, you will discover that they now spend money to train their staff in French schools. So, why can’t they learn it from the beginning.

Do you also subscribe to the exclusion of history in the curriculum?

In Doveseal, we teach history. It is not that the ministry of education doesn’t want schools to teach history, it is because, schools don’t have history teachers. There is no education policy saying history should not be taught. We teach history in our school.

Schools where history are not taught is basically because they don’t have history teachers. If teachers are not interested in history, consequently, there will be dearth of teachers to impart the knowledge. History used to be compulsory. But most careers, and professions have given a lot of alternatives. In Law, it is English -Literature or Government; so history is not main or compulsory subject. If the Federal Government wants students to develop interest in history, it should guarantee automatic employment for history graduates.

The way government wants to make French compulsory, it should also make history compulsory. I will advise the Federal Government to give scholarship to students willing to study history in the university. The Federal Government should also provide automatic job opportunities for history students. So that immediately they graduate from the universities, jobs are waiting for them. By doing so, you will see a lot of people opting to study History.

What are the things that make Doveseal College unique?

Everything about the school is unique. At Doveseal College, we believe that if a child is not doing well, the teachers are at fault. So, we always encourage teachers to find out why a student is not doing well. Apart from engaging them in groups in the class, we do one-on-one teaching.

How qualified are your teachers?

I’m aware that the ministry of education regulations stated that NCE should not teach in secondary schools. I quite agree with them. In Doveseal, we have experienced graduate teachers, especially those who read education, teaching in the school. I have people that were Vice Principals as teachers and subject teachers.

What were your school achievements over the years?

I was able to take my students to the UK, South Africa and Ghana for international excursion. During excursion, we tried to expose them to basic things that will broaden their horizon. We equally had concerts. We are equally trying to find a balance on how our students compete with other schools, while still being very strong academically.