Please, can you introduce yourself properly?
I’m Reverend Sister Christiana Olagunju, SACJ, the Administrator of Holy Child College, the Great Institute. We’ll be 80 years next year by the grace of God, 9th of April, 2025. Today, we are having fun with our students and our parents. They’ve all come around to celebrate together. We call it Funfair. Funfair is an event where parents, students, and staff can interact, celebrate, and eat together as one family. We have this yearly. And also, we are using this one as part of the celebration of 80 years, as this is next year, just around the corner, because we’ll be having different activities. We have so many things that we can eat. So many vendors are around. Just go to anyone and pick something, eat. We also share if you want to share with people. It’s like a love feast we have together here.
As the administrator and head of the school, how do you admit students into the school? What are the things the person has to meet up to for him or her to be admitted?
Well, in Holy Child College, which is also one of the assistant schools, we have 10 assistant secondary schools. Holy Child is one of them. We admit through exam. First, you get your form, which is 10,000 now. After which you write your exam around February or March, depending on when the time suits for before Easter. After the exam, if you make it, you are qualified to come for an interview. But our pass mark here is 60. It’s 60 over 100. Once you can get your 60, we invite you and chat with you in the form of an interview. If you pass our interview, then you are admitted into the school.
So how many are in a class? Some schools have a specific number of students in a particular class. So in Hold Child, do you people have a specific number of students in a particular class?
Yes, our students, there are no more than 30 in a class. But at present, we have 20, 25 in each class that we have.
Why only 20, or 25?
It helps the teachers to coordinate very well and helps them to reach out to each student because they all have different needs and they are also special children. They are unique in their way. So when they are too crowded, you will not be able to manage the students as you should as a teacher. When you come in and you go out, you will not know your students. And for us in Holy Child, a girl’s education is very important to us, we don’t joke with it. And we don’t just say education alone, book, book, book, book, we have fun. There are some of them, we help them to develop their talents. It might not be good academically, but at the same time, we can also help you in maybe if it’s drama or dancing or sports, any of these things can fit in so that at the end, when you finish your studies in Holy Child, you have something to fall back on. We have some of our students that are through this, it’s not because they went to school, maybe university, but they were able to make something, even some of them before they got to university because maybe they didn’t have the funds, the means are not there. So what they did is to use the talents they’ve gotten here to make little funds for themselves to help themselves. Whereas we have some, immediately they finish, they travel out, they have the means. So we are not just focusing on rich people, we also focus on the poor.
So I noticed there was an exam being written on the school premises, can you shed more light on that particular exam?
Okay, it’s called SATs.
What’s the meaning of SATs?
Standard Assessment Tests, have to do with studying abroad, that’s the exam they require for you to be admitted. So they use our school, it’s a center. And if you have to go to the U.S. too, they use this exam for this thing. That’s what we have for now. But after some time, from next year, we are going to have some other exams like the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, ACCA. Our school is also a center for the Lekki region axis for ACCA, which is expected to start by God’s grace next year, and also the Cambridge exam. We are starting all those next year because the school will be registered by God’s grace, in January 2025.
As an All-Girls school, which is sensitive, do you admit male teachers in the school?
Yes, we have male teachers in the school, but they know their limits with the students. They have no right to touch the student. They have no right to flog them or say insulting words to them. If there is anything at all, they report it. You can punish, but you know the type of punishment you give to a child. So they know their limits and they are trying their best to adjust and fit in because there is always an agreement, and if you violate this agreement, you’ll be asked to leave because the child first.
Why is it that a school as big as Holy Child College has no signpost?
The school sells itself. The school sells itself already, and that’s just the way it is. You don’t need big signposts to say, oh, this is the way to Holy Child College. We are looking for people. Once you say you are going to Holy Child College, the majority of the people know it, they will tell you it’s at the back of St. Gregory Boys College. They know it’s there, and you know it’s a missionary school. So missionary schools are not like all private schools that advertise for people to come and admit their children, and they are directly after finance, unlike ours.
By Benprince Ezeh
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