• How many of our students scored above 300 in UTME -Kaduna college VP
From Sola Ojo, Abuja
Alayande David, a 17-year-old student, Zamani College, Kaduna, Kaduna State, with a score of 367, emerged highest scorer in the 2024 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), the external examinations involving 1.8million students.
But, that is not even the news. The spotlight is on the college where scores of Alayande’s classmates scored above 300 in that examination. Vice Principal, Secondary Section, Zamani College, Simon Apeh, spoke with Daily Sun.
Excerpts:
How old is Zamani?
Zamani College was established in 1986. We have graduatped students who are now all over endeavours in the World – military, medical, registrars in universities, successful entrepreneurs, and so on.
What about the population of your students?
The average number in each class is 120, and we have SS1, SS2, and SS3 making it 360. They are divided into 20 students to a teacher for proper learning contact. We repeat students here as well because we don’t joke with our standard although that is rare. Our pass mark is 60 percent, not 50 percent, as is the case with most schools.
What is the school doing differently in terms of academics and character?
What makes us stand out is the excellent leadership, commitment, and ongoing professional development training that the school put in place for all the teachers. We don’t take that for granted. This is a school that does not believe in talking too much. We believe in the doing.
This is a core educational institution that has been in existence for over three decades. We are a partner global network of schools with the British Council. This school is Cambridge Assessment Centre. We have a tutorial session that is affiliated with many universities in the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates. We don’t also jump curriculums.
What was the pulse of the school when it heard the news of one of your students topping in the 2024 UTME?
Over the years, the majority of our students have been coming out very well in external examinations, but this year is different. Post-COVID-19, we have to consider how students feel; therefore, we include emotional intelligence in our teachings. We feel for them. We consider their needs including being positive among themselves and between them and their teachers.
We also have this excellent triangle between the child, the parents and the school. If you work consistently with this triangle, that is, regular Parents Teachers Association (PTA) meetings where you give parents feedback about their children and parents share the challenges they face at home. We also organize a sensitization programme on how a parent can be supported in guiding their children at home. So, it is all about excellent teamwork.
Again, college students’ performance in external examinations is not the case of the exceptional brilliant children as obtainable in some schools where only one child comes out with flying colours. In the last UTME, the college had about 25 of its students who scored above 300.
How true is it that the school only admits children from rich homes?
No, we don’t accept any sentiment here. The bùoard of this school sends teachers not only to national educational training but also outside the shores of this country for educational engagements. Our students participated in the international Geography Olympia competition in Dublin.
We also have another one called the International Young Physics Tournament. We don’t joke with these things. In all, when children are contributing positively as responsible adults, that is your joy. We have excellent welfare for teachers and a good working environment.
What can be done to improve the education holistically in Nigeria?
There is a need for government to encourage education. Talking about excellence in academics and character, private schools cannot do this alone. Government schools need to be supported. We feel bad as teachers in private schools that most of our colleagues who are teachers in public schools don’t have appropriate resources to incorporate and enhance teaching in learning.
It is not enough to be issuing policy statements. The question should be, what are you doing to encourage the implementers of the curriculum? What about the state of infrastructure in public schools? What about the learning environment? Are the students sitting well? Is there contact between the teachers and their students? In public schools, they have up to 100 students in a class.
The largest room is the room for improvement. Is there any area in Zamani College that needs improvement?
We need parents to support the school to help us control the impact of digital devices that is a major distraction to our students’ learning. What is a secondary school student who is undergoing development at the formative age of 12 doing with expensive digital devices? What is he doing on social media when he has about 13 subjects, homework, and assignments?
Research has shown that the blue screen has a negative impact on your frontal loop, giving you a kind of cocaine-additive substance, thereby not making the child not wanting to focus on his books. In our school, as a policy, we don’t allow phones. We confiscate them permanently. We even break them. We destroy them. This was a collective decision of the PTA.
Don’t misunderstand me; we cannot run away from technology, but we need to take responsibility for being distracted. This is a major area of concern.
When our students graduate, we buy good books for them. When a child is graduating from secondary school, he or she is about to go and face the real world in a higher institution. You can expose them to skills like coding or entrepreneurial training, so they become realistic problem solvers. So, gift should be something that can build the mind, not breaking the mind.
In this school, no child is allowed to drive. If you are caught driving a car in this school you will be expelled. You don’t come to Zamani College to come and flaunt wealth. The child of a trader who can afford school fees is not treated differently from the child of a rich man. That you can see in our children. All of them playing together. Nothing like class distinction.