St Louis Nursery and Primary School, Mokola, Ibadan, Nigeria
| The St Louis Nursery/Primary School is presently being built in a very densely populated part of the city of Ibadan. Good quality education is not easy to find in the poorer parts of the city but the Sisters of St Louis are now developing a new school which will cater for those who are unable to pay the high school fees demanded by the private schools. The following article highlights the great need to support creative development programmes such as the new school being set up by the Sisters of St Louis with the help of the parents of the Mokola area. Misean cara is proud to be associated with this new initiative. |
Thanks to misean cara
we are presently constructing new classrooms,
administrative block, library and toilet block
at the St Louis Nursery and Primary School in
Mokola. The parents are delighted with this
development as they all want quality education
for their children.
The school will eventually be able to cater for
about 700 children between the ages of 4 and 12
years. The idea for the project began when the
Archbishop of Ibadan, in consultation with the
parishioners of Mokola requested the Sisters to
help them provide qualitative education for the
children of the area. The local government
schools are neglected and the children are not
being taught, resulting in a very poor standard
of education. Only those from rich families can
afford to go to private schools which charge
high fees. Moreover, it is not uncommon to have
from 60 to 80 children in a classroom where
little or no attention is given to them.
At the moment the first set of children have
been admitted into the school. They are mostly
from the Mokola area of the city, an area that
has not had the opportunity of such an
institution over the years. Children have had to
walk or be driven long distances to the nearest
school available. Mokola is one of the most
thickly populated areas of Ibadan. The school
hopes to help children mainly from poor and low
income families in order to give them equal
opportunities with other children for good
quality education in an environment that is
conducive to learning. This is with a view to
preparing the children for a better quality of
life in the future, where they can fit into
society and participate actively in it. As well
as this, the personal development of each pupil
will hopefully be assured.
The school will form part of the Catholic
Schools set up nationwide to meet the
educational needs and will continue to follow
the syllabus set up by the Ministry of Education
while being accountable to both the ministry and
the Archdiocese. The school will be managed by
the Sisters of St Louis.
An advisory board has been set up, consisting of
members of St Gabriel's parish, Mokola, and
others from the locality, to act in an advisory
role and as a sounding board. This is to help
the management of the new school to be better
aware of the needs on the ground and to respond
to them in so far as this is possible. Provision
is also made to give scholarships to some needy
and less privileged children from the area so
that they too can partake of the benefits
available. We are also hopeful that in the near
future opportunities will be provided for the
provision of education for blind children in the
school. To this end we plan to recruit a special
education teacher and possibly have some of our
Sisters trained in this specialist area.
As the school is being managed and run by the
Sisters of St Louis, it has links with the other
St Louis Schools thus providing the possibility
of exchange of programmes and the provision of a
healthy competition among the children. The aim
is to guide and prepare our youth to face the
highly competitive and technological world of
the 21st century.
(Report prepared by Sr. Patricia Ojo SSL,
Provincial of the St Louis Sisters in Nigeria)