Mrs Esther Olusola Aliu is the founder and director of studies at Frontliners Schools. She was a teacher, education programme promoter and administrator who has worked at both the government circle and private organisations before setting up her own school in 2002. She has successfully run the school for 17 years, has expanded and still plans to expand across Lagos. She bagged a teacher’s grade II certificate at the Government Teacher’s College in Idah, Kogi state (formerly Benue state) in 1981 and then proceeded to Kwara state college of education where she had her NCE in 1986. In 1992, she became a graduate with B.Ed. from the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria while she had her M.Ed. at Lagos State University in 2004. Frontliners is not just any other mushroom school in Lagos, it is a government-approved school with crèche, pre-school, kindergarten, nursery and primary services. The facilities at both branches in Akowonjo and Alagbado areas of Lagos are not just topnotch, they are beyond imagination for a primary school. They have a well-equipped laboratory for elementary and basic sciences, the ambiance is conducive for learning and assimilation as well as friendly and professional educators who relate with pupils as friends and companions rather than teachers. City People’s DAMILARE SALAMI and TIMOTHY FOWOMOLA last week paid a visit to the Alagbado branch of Frontliners Schools where they met with the CEO cum Director of Studies, Mrs Esther Olusola Aliu and they had an exclusive interview where MrsAliu opened up on how she has been able to grow the school from the scratch to where it is presently and the fringe benefits parents and pupils stand to enjoy whenever they patronize Frontliners. Below are excerpts from the interview, enjoy.
You started Frontliners Schools 17 years ago after having worked in both the private and public sector especially as a teacher. How did you conceive the idea of starting a school?
Thank you, I’ve always been a teacher, having gone through then teachers’ training college, from teachers grade II and College of Education where I had NCE, I also proceeded to have a B.Ed. degree then a Master’s degree also in education. So, my whole life has revolved around children and youths. So, over time as I ventured into educational activities, I was seen a lot of lapses which I expect owners of schools to take into considerations which they did not, so I developed the passion to start my own school and make an impact and I decided to open a school that can fill the vacuum that has been created by a lot of school owners. Although it took me a lot of time before I could start, because I knew all along that starting a school is not an easy task, you have to put a lot of things in place for your children to actually get the best, and it wasn’t easy to gather funds but at the appointed time in the sight of God, we started. Frontliners School purely in the best interest of our children not for personal gains but the passion I had for children made me start. And I thank God, although we are not big yet but the fulfillment is there that I am playing my part in the educational sector and I give God the glory.
You earlier said you noticed a vacuum in schools and decided to fill that vacuum by establishing this school. So I will like to ask, what differentiates Frontliners from other schools?
Thank you very much, that’s a very good question. A lot of things are involved that set us apart from other schools. I am not saying that other schools are not doing their best but what I am sure of is that our schools stand out in many ways. As a matter of fact, even the physical appearance of our pupils stand them out from among their peers. For example, the headteacher at Akowonjo branch was telling me just yesterday that when she took our children for a government exam a few weeks back, all eyes were just on them. I’m talking about the educators there, the supervisors, and when they were no longer able to hold it, they came to ask her what the name of the school was and where it was located. And they started saying it must be a private school, in fact, your children stand out from among their mates, and so on… because of the way the children cultured themselves. So what stands my school out is our pursuit of academic and moral excellence, integrity all round. And that’s what we teach our children every day, beginning from the assembly. It’s not enough to be sound academically alone, you have to be morally upright too because that is where character building starts from. If we can groom children properly from now, I’m sure they will grow up to have a great impact on this nation. They will make a lot of difference in society. For instance, we don’t just appoint prefects here, we train pupils to campaign and contest to be elected as prefects. They must be sure of what they are going to say to their colleagues and they must not say what they cannot do. We ask them to develop and read their manifestoes on their own to those who are going to vote for them. But before then, we make sure we scrutinize them and give them criteria for vying for posts some of which are uprightness, punctuality, obedience to school rules and regulations, friendliness and being humane. The children are allowed to vote for whoever they want, because make them file out and cast their votes in the ballot boxes that have been provided. At the end of the day, we all count the votes together and the winners emerge. The winners and losers have to embrace each other after the contest and I always make them know that the fact that they did not win today does not mean they are not going to win another time. And that politics is should not be a dirty game. We always tell them not to see it as a do or die affair. In morals, we take pupils through etiquette training. They must be courteous, we teach them the way they greet an elderly person, their colleagues, the way proper way to eat, we also teach them regularly, how to comport themselves in the classroom, on the field using the recreational gadgets and even at home with their neighbours. We take them through life training in all areas. We have very committed staff members, many of them have been with me from the very beginning and over time, they have gotten used to our vision and mission statements and we all work together to ensure that we accomplish that mission.
They are very committed and give pastoral care to the children i.e. they give them individual attention in the classroom. They also pay attention to children with challenges either academics or those with attitudinal issues. They try and see how they can help children overcome their various challenges too; in fact, many parents attest to that, when they bring their children and tell us about their challenges and after are while they come to us to say their children are overcoming or have overcome such challenges. We also pray for them, we commit them to God in prayer in the morning and evening, we imbibe the culture of prayers into them because we don’t believe that we can do anything by ourselves. We also have a very high standard infrastructure for our children. As a nursery and primary school, we have a well-equipped laboratory and even when officials from the ministry come here, they ask us if we are a secondary school because we spend so much on the laboratory and I tell them that my children must start from now because we want them to develop interest in sciences and when they take rudimentary science, we make them practicalise it. We must begin to build scientists from their childhood so that in the future, we will have many scientists in Nigeria that will be making waves here in the country. We know there are some doing well abroad already, we also want to build this country and we are starting with our children. We also give them good food. In fact, some of our parents when they come at lunchtime, they want to eat with their children and also commend our food. We give them a very balanced diet which I also eat from and when my children are around too, they also share from it. Many parents have now decided to pay for lunch even those who didn’t believe in it before. We also create an interpersonal relationship with our parents my number is available for them to call for complaints any time and whenever there is a complaint, we attend to them promptly. These and many other things stand us out.
I must really say that I’m very impressed to hear some of the things because I do not know many primary schools that put these in place. I would like to ask, Ma, what fringe benefits that parents stand to get for having their children as pupils at Frontliners?
First and foremost, we give parents a rebate on the third child. And I can beat my hands on the chest to say that my rebate is the highest so far in Lagos. Many schools give 25% on the third child but we give 50% and they are proud of it. Every year, I also make sure that we give them appreciation gifts for staying with us from the beginning of the year until the end. We also allow parents use our facilities for their events like wedding, they make use of our fields, some make use of our halls with just a token that we collect from them for maintenance. So they gain a lot from us just as we gain a lot from them.
Having said all these, I’m tempted to ask, why the name Frontliners?
Well, the name speaks for itself. When you say somebody is a front liner that means the person is at the front line. Since this is an academic institution, it only means that my children are at the front line of academic prowess. That is what I had at the back of my mind when I coined that name in 2002 when we started. I knew that every child that passes through my school must be an achiever and be at the front line of all good things; academically, spiritually and morally. I initially wanted to make it headliners school but I thought that people might mistake it for a fashion school so I decided to change it to this. I knew I wanted people that will make headlines even in their adulthood that was why I opted for Frontliners.
A school of this standard is always seen on the Island. Places like Ikoyi, Victoria Island, Lekki Peninsula and so on. Why did you decide to set it up here in Akowonjo and Alagbado areas?
I believe that good things are not only limited to the people on the Island. God has blessed them already, they have good roads, good neighbourhood, and good schools like Frontliners just as you said and they have money to acquire those things. So I believe that people over here too are human beings too. Children over here have a right to good and qualitative education, good life, so I decided to establish the schools in these areas for the benefits of the children over here
And in what ways can you say you have been achieving that purpose?
I have been achieving that purpose because I get feedbacks from parents of the pupils that have passed through this school that they stand out wherever they go and when they meet with pupils from other hybrid schools on the Island, they compete favourably with them. In fact, my children most times supersede them and parents attest to that very often. When they sit for common entrance examinations or other entrance examinations into higher schools, my children perform excellently. I think it has worked so far. Children don’t have to go all the way to the Island to get good schools, we have been able to bring quality education closer to the masses and that for me is satisfactory. I live on the Island and I come down here from there all the time. I know what is obtainable there so I put everything in place in the school for the benefit of the children here.
Why do you have this fantastic offer of qualitative education only for primary school pupils?
We are working on starting our secondary school very soon. By the grace of God may be by next session, our secondary school can spring up beautifully, (laughs) I’m trusting God for that.
And what location are you looking at for the secondary school?
We have land here… parents have been even disturbing us that the land space here is big enough to start a secondary school. If you look far down there, we have a building there, if we can do some barricades to differentiate the secondary school from the primary and also prevent children from infiltrating there. We can also decide to have it in an entirely new place. It depends on God’s leading.
Something that is very key about education is affordability. How affordable is Frontliners?
We are very affordable like you said, if I say I want to give them offers that are available on the Island and also give them fees that can equate such offers, definitely many of them will not be able to afford it. So I have to peg it to what I believe is reasonable and they can afford. So there is no problem about affordability at all.
It’s been interesting speaking with you so far. You are an educationist and have been in the business for many years before setting up your own firm. I have a concern and that is the rate of sub-standard private schools in Lagos and unqualified teachers paraded in many private school. As far as I know, there is no sanity in the operations of many of these schools. What do you think the government can do to restore sanity?
This is a very good question, I want to thank you for asking. There is a lot that the government can do but will not do. The government knows what is expected of them and as a matter of fact concerning the establishment of schools, there are rules supposedly guiding us. But even right before us, people will break these rules and government will be silent on them. For instance for you to establish a school approved by the government, it must not be 500 yards close to any other school but to my amazement, schools are just springing up everywhere. And it is the same government that will later approve such schools. So where does the law come in there? Everybody is taking the laws into his hands and the government is just watching. Instead of helping the system, the government just keep coming up with levies upon levies. I personally believe that government should help the private sector because government alone can’t handle education in Nigeria. So private operators should be seen as helpers. The government should create platform for level playing ground for the private educators. It won’t be out of place if the government can give private educators some grants may be once in a year or two years and assist instead of coming up with levies that will even send some schools packing. I know there are some schools that are struggling, including us, it’s not as if we have arrived. The money we get from pupils goes back into the running of the school. To pay salary alone is not an easy task. We pay salary all through the year. By the time you calculate what goes out of the school at the end of the year, we sometimes almost do not have anything because there are always projects to run in the school at the end of each session. Thank God for some banks who assist us with facilities. Some give us term loans while others do annual loans. These are some of the things we expect the government to do and are not doing because if the government does that, the interest rate will be very low. So government can do a lot but it doesn’t seem they want to do anything. That’s why you see a lot of mushroom schools and before you know it, you will see government approved placed on those school. In the last dispensation, the Deputy Governor was very keen about education, she created a quality control team that monitored schools in terms of infrastructure and curriculum and I want to believe that this dispensation too will follow their footsteps. But in the area of proliferation of schools, I think they need to pay attention to that especially distance.
I believe the private school owners should have an association that can relate with the government. What is the association doing in that regard?
The association is trying its best, in the time past, it wasn’t strong enough to have a voice but these days, right from the national level we meet the government from time to time and they are trying their best to push our case to the government in terms of levies. They have filed some cases in court, we are not saying we are not going to pay but those levies are just too much. They are taking it step by step and I think with time, they will take this one too up.
Frontliners School is just in two locations as we speak, what plans do you have on spreading across the state?
The next place I’m looking at now is on the Island. I have been having offers here and there. Some schools whose owners want to relocate are already contacting me. So in the near future say like two years to this time by the grace of God, I should be having an annex on the Island.
While coming into your office, I saw the title director of education while other school founders address themselves as proprietor or proprietress. What informed that difference?
(Laughs) that’s what I believe I am because I direct the education and every other affair in this place. The bottom line is education. That’s what all of us are here for, both the staff and the pupils and I am the director of all the affairs so that’s why we have the change in titles.
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