Posit College, Ojoo, Ibadan, Oyo State is the first private secondary school in Akinyele Local Government Area of Ibadan. It has been established for some years back with a track record of their students, in various higher institutions of learning in Nigeria. Posit college which started from a room has one unique selling point which is “we don’t believe that there are dullards”. It is a school that specializes in making the impossibilities possible. In this interview with FEMI BABALOLA the Proprietor of the school Dr. Wale Aderibigbe exclusively bares his mind on the progress of the school.
WHAT motivates your venture into private school ownership?
Well, I have a daughter who was 7years old. It is my desire to train her in a most unique way. The public schools did not have the enough educational apparatuses to give her what I want. They could not give her the stuff that I have in mind. I read physics education, which I believe has opened my eyes to the kind of education that I desire for her. When I discovered that the public school may not give her the desired stuff I started my own school. The lady I am talking about today has master in Marine Engineering.
What’s your core value?
Posit College is all about sciences. It is a science oriented school, every other thing is minor. If the school produced 45 students for example in the final exam in SS3 only 10 candidates will be for other areas the rest will be science. We encourage them to choose science and their external results has been wonderful. Posit College has represented Oyo State on the experimentation of Solar energy which the school came first in the competition in Oyo State and in the final competition in Abuja came first also, thereby bring glory to Oyo State.
We have worked on Terminal energy. We can use sawdust to provide energy. We have worked on Micro-hydro, we did that on Asejire water. Now, by this experiment we can power 100 houses conveniently. Science is our core-value. We are science oriented school.
What’s your teaching methodology?
Ours centres on students. It is a student centred methodology. Many people and students may know it but may not know how to go by it. The best teaching method is in individualism but it is very costlier. The unique selling point of this school is that we trained whom the world called dullard and within the span of time becomes egg head.
The secret is this, when they bring such students I will ask their parents can your son or daughter play table-tennis, football and the likes, if they say yet, I tell them, it is not dullard it is only his/her attention that is being shifted somewhere else. I tell them leave your daughter or son in the next few weeks come back, you won’t believe what you will see. For example Shittu Afeez when they brought him was a dullard, had in its final exams 8 distinctions and one credit. If students fail exams teacher in this school, we centre on training not teaching alone any students therefore that do not perform well blame the teacher.
How will you rate students performance in external exams?
It has been 100% successful. In one exams we presented 45 candidates, all of them passed Jamb too, though we are still expecting the Post Jamb result but we know it’s going to be excellent as well. Over the years the school has been established we have produced many Medical Doctors, Lawyers, for instance Wale-Oyewale graduated from University of Ilorin as a Medical Doctor. The first Senior Prefect, Bayo Mustapha graduated from same, Ilorin, Adewure Ola graduated from OAU, Medicine, Akanbi Malik is a Lawyer.
What’s the school standard in employment of teachers?
The first qualification a teacher must have after every other things is that he must passed the written and oral interview. If you want to teach chemistry as a subject for example you must pass ‘O’level chemistry in WAEC. Any teacher who will work with us will sit for ‘O’level paper in their respective subjects of teaching and must score 60% and above. The oral interview is very important it is as compulsory as written interview part of the oral is the practical aspect of facing the students in the classroom. The way and manner the person or the would-be teacher answer questions will determine if such will work with us, from there we will know his ability.
What assistance do you think is needful from government to private schools?
The salary of the teachers should be paid by the proprietor of private school and the government as we have it in Ghana. If government believe that this children are theirs too, they should not watch their destiny being handled by the private sector alone, paying the half of salary of the teacher should not be too much for them. Government is looking at the whole thing as if it was ambiguous. The tax is too much on us, tenement rate and what have you, though the proprietor and the proprietress have met on this, the current government is asking for what is not realizable.
How well equipped is your students for CBT?
We have computer lab and laptop that they carry to the class. The students are learning it also outside the school. We offer computer as a subject. The last WAEC was 100%.