Private school in Abia offers over 80 students scholarship

From Okey Sampson, Umuahia

A privately owned secondary school in Abia State, Total Education Development Academy (TEDA), said it has offered over 80 students scholarship.

Disclosing this, the founder of the school, Dr. Godson Dinneya, said 12 per cent of the school’s population was on one from of scholarship or the other, which he tabulated into four categories. 

Dinneya said the first category was those on scholarship for academic excellence who pay only 50 per cent of the fees, the same as staff’s children. 

The second group was pastors’ children, who get 25 per cent rebate of the school fees, a third sibling in a family gets 20 per cent rebate and children of widows also get 20 per cent rebate on the fees. 

Dinneya, who said the gesture was the school’s way of giving back to society what it has been receiving from it, promised that TEDA would continue to make its presence felt within its area of operation and beyond.

He stated that three parts made up a school, the instructors, learners, and the teaching/learning environment, which he said was nothing to right home about in most public schools. 

“To a large extent, there are still qualified teachers, and the students are readily available. What is grossly lacking is the enabling environment, especially infrastructure. 

“You have classrooms with leaking roofs, empty libraries, cobweb-infested laboratories, dry and blocked water pipes where they exist, and a near absence of electricity. And the big one, poorly remunerated school staff whose salaries are almost always in arrears of up to 12 months,” he said. 

While stating that government has lost the moral right to enforce its own policy guidelines to the managements of private schools, he promised that TEDA was always out to fill the gap.

In this direction, Dinneya said TEDA has  introduced and equipped an information and communication technology workshop to add to its six workshops for technical subjects.

According to him, the school now offers Phone and Computer Maintenance (PCM) classes, which he said was designed to empower the students in ICT-based entrepreneurship and self-reliance after secondary school.

He added: “In addition to our well-equipped Cultural and Creative Arts Studio (CCA), TEDA has introduced music classes powered by Kharismates Music Academy, Nigeria, where students are taught how to sing and play different musical instruments such as violin, cello, saxophone, keyboard, guitar and more.”