By Chigozie Uzosike, Owerri
The management of a Nigerian established British standard secondary school, Shekinah International Schools, Ihiagwa, Owerri West local government area of Imo has revealed its vision and mission to restore the glory of education in the country with premium integration of global curriculum and extra curricular activities.
Addressing newsmen in a press briefing in Owerri, the principal of the school, Christian Modebe said the mission of changing the educational narratives is wholly anchored on not only reaching the expectations of parents and guardians across boards but to impact on the students to be great ambassadors of the school, state, country and society at large.
Modebe emphasized that Shekinah International Schools; established in 2018 is among the best schools in Nigeria with national and international curriculum having graduated four sets of “A” grade students as well as JAMB highest score candidates in Imo with 350 in 2024 and 2025, adding that it offers state of the art facilities, 24-hour uninterrupted Solar Power supply, well equipped laboratories and round the clock security with highly qualified staff and over four hundred 400 students with best of characters, learning and academic performance.
“Shekinah International Secondary Boarding School in Nigeria, is rated among the top four last year by the Federal Ministry of Education. it’s important to let the general public know about how we take care of students, students’ welfare,how our robust curriculum has helped the students to have excellent grades in WAEC, NECO, the UTME, and other international examinations such as SAT, IELTS, TOEFL, and others”
“We’ve also brought into our secondary education to make our students to compete globally, advanced placement courses for our students, where our students will do advanced subjects such as mathematics, chemistry, physics, biology.
“They gather credits to enable them obtain admission into top universities abroad. We also have our students do online exchange programs with top universities, with tutors in top universities outside the country. And then they are assessed and it helps them gain admission into Ivy League schools and other top universities outside the country”.
The Principal further disclosed that the school in its bid to fight unemployment head-on in society introduced school of entrepreneurship studies for students to choose their niches and make a living in fashion and designing, music, dance, martial arts, robotics among other courses; adding that the programmes are packaged with Google, AWS, CISCO and other global IT company’s certifications as well structured to redirect the mentality of consumption to production.
“We have what we call the entrepreneurship schools. This is not just the normal skill position people to do.
This entrepreneurship schools, they are well organized.
We have the advanced programming school where students learn how to code from HTML to CSS to JavaScript to Python. We have the School of Catering, where students are taught how to cook different continental and national dishes.
“We have our School of Fashion and Designing, where students learn how to make dresses. We also have School of Music, where we teach students different musical instruments and also how to sing. We have School of Dance. We have the School of Martial Art. We have School of Robotics”.
He said the school is in partnership with Top Clubs outside the country to enable students in Shekinah British International School Football Academy actualize their football dreams of being connected to top soccer teams and academy outside the country such as Western and West Ham”.
“Next year, our students will be going to Western.
They will be going to the West Ham Academy summer breaks and boot camps to play football and have leadership development”.
“We also have this happening in Spain and France so we help our students in the football academy, connect them with teams and when they are done with the secondary education, if they wish to continue in that particular direction, it is easier for them because they are already going for summer boot camps abroad”.
Modebe however frowned at the high level of examination malpractice in the educational sector, stressing that the best way to fight the developmental monster is by employing qualified and experienced teachers and prioritizing supervision to get the students well prepared to face any examination while calling on the government to also contribute their quota by serving teachers welfare as and when due to boost their morale.
“You see, I must tell you, examination malpractice increases with inadequate preparation by the students.
“So for you to first curb examination malpractice, your students must be adequately prepared for these exams and for students to be adequately prepared for the exams, one must get teachers and qualified staff in schools to prepare them.
“Now, if we are trying to curb examination malpractice in Nigeria, first of all, the government and educational institutions and ministries must first look at the qualifications, experiences of our teachers and ensure that our teachers are doing very well”.
“On the part of the government, there must be good supervision because if you allow people to do what they want, they would continue to do it the way they want to do it. Without supervision, a lot of people don’t do well”.
“There should be very good supervision in all schools. There are schools you go to, and the teachers are not even in the classroom”.
“Now, coming down to Shekinah British International School,from day one, the child enters the school, to the last day they leave the school, there is 100% supervision.
Supervision in the classroom, supervision in the hostel, supervision in the sports field and that is why I said our students are doing very well in all external examination and it starts from
internal examinations while students are taking exams and they are well supervised.
“As principal, I supervise them even from my office through the exam hall CCTV camera. So you see, when you aid and abate examination malpractice, it does not just have impact on your immediate school. It does impact on both the university and the products we have in the country.
“So if we are to build Nigeria, it should be a collective effort of both the teachers, the school owners, the ministries of education and others stakeholders in education.”
