•Proprietress, Mrs. ESTHER ALIU
The Frontliners School is one of the stand-out nursery and primary institutions in Lagos state this very moment. The school started small in Agbado area of Lagos but it has metamorphosed into one of the biggest nursery and primary schools in the state, spreading its tentacles to other parts of Lagos such as Akowonjo. The school has consistently produced pupils who have become great ambassadors of the school, showing outstanding academic excellence and impressive morals wherever they go. The Frontliners School was established about 20 years ago by the very brilliant and enterprising Mrs. Esther Aliu. This soft spoken and extremely affable woman is a professionally trained teacher whose love for children led her into leaving her thriving fashion institute to set up the school. And today, 20 years after she took that big step, she has done remarkably well for herself and for the school, taking it to such unprecedented height that it now stands head and shoulders above its peers.
Two weeks ago, the duo of City People’s Senior Editor, WALE LAWAL (08037209290) and Advert Head, TIMOTHY Fowomola spent over an hour engaging the very articulate Esther Aliu as she took us through her humble beginning and the success story of the Frontliners School as they celebrate its 20 years anniversary this Thursday, December 15th, 2022. Enjoy excerpts of the interview.
Let us begin by congratulating you on the 20 years anniversary of your school, The Frontliners School. It’s been 20 solid years in the education sector, how do you feel, ma, about this milestone achievement that you have recorded?
I feel grateful to God almighty in the first place. I feel so very thankful to God who has kept me alive, that’s number one. From 2002 till date because a lot has happened between then and now and it was only God Himself that saw me through. So, I’m very grateful for His mercies and protection over me, over my family, over the school, over the children, staff and parents. So, in all ways, I give glory to God almighty that Frontliners is 20, my joy knows no bounds. This is something that we started very little and has now grown this big, I will remain forever grateful to Him alone.
To spend 20 years running a school in this part of the world is certainly not an easy thing to achieve. If you look back, apart from the God factor, what would you say are the key factors that have really helped you survive for this long?
Yes, apart from God almighty, apart from His strength and grace that have seen me through, I will say the passion for the profession has kept me going. I will be honest with you, if it wasn’t for the passion I had from the beginning, especially my love and passion for the little children, maybe I would’ve stopped and look for another business. What also helped was my determination to succeed in the profession. I had committed my time, my resources, everything into it. So, I think it’s been God, it’s been passion, its been dedication and the strong will to succeed.
At what point in your life would you say you realized you have this soft spot for children?
Well, personally, its been there since my childhood. I have always had the love for children, always wanted them around me. When my older siblings were giving birth and raising children, I loved to be with them. I believed the passion developed from that stage. For me, its an inborn thing. As a matter of fact, I never really taught in the primary school, most of my teaching days were in the secondary but because of that innate love for children, I didn’t start with a secondary school, I chose to begin with primary school. That’s why I run only nursery and primary school. My love for little children made me go into setting up a primary school instead of secondary school.
If you look back, when would you say you realised you were destined to go into the teaching profession and at what point exactly did you decide you were also going to set up a school?
Initially, I never thought of having a school because I actually started with a fashion outfit. I am a fashion person. I had a fashion institute, I graduated many students. The first business I had after I stopped teaching was buying and selling fashion wares before I now started a fashion outfit. Under the fashion outfit, I had a fashion institute. I had many students, I had hostel accommodation, it was quite big. But while I was doing all that, I was also into children’s promotion where we would go to various schools and organize various trips and excursions for them and organize party or Xmas activities for the children and showed educational films. Then, we started going to secondary schools and partnered with them. It was during this period that I got to see the way many of the proprietors ran their schools. I saw a lot of things that needed to change and I made up my mind that I was going to start in the year 2002.
So, you no longer run the fashion outfit?
No, I no longer run the fashion outfit but I have a tailor who has been with me for long time there, I left him there to continue operate the business. I left most of the equipments with them and they are doing well. I still engage them when I need to get a dress sewn for myself or members of my family. Even some of my friends still rely on me to help them with designs for their fabrics.
I was told you started with the school in Alakuko and you started pretty small then before it metamorphosed into the big institution it is today. How difficult were those early years?
Well, I made sure I went to some of the people I had known in the education sector at least to learn a little bit from them. So, they put me through some things and showed me how things are done and I saw the things I would like to change in the education sector. I discovered that most of the proprietors then were not honest in the way they handled their staff, it was something that I thought was not nice. Again, most of them did not pay attention to the environment of the school. So, when I started I made sure I created a conducive environment for learning. I made sure I bought enough play gadgets for children, especially the Montessori aspect of education, I also got that so that children could learn through play because I believe children learn better through play, so I decided to start with that and to the glory of God, many parents saw what we were doing and invited other parents from other schools.
Considering the competition in the state, what were you able to do to make Frontliners school different from the rest?
Like I said earlier, I created a very good environment for the children when we started. You know, parents love what they see. So, I put that into consideration by putting a lot of nice things in place. I also gave parents concession on their children. Parents that had up to three children, I got them to pay half tuition on the third child which they found very exciting because at that time, nobody had ever done that in that area. I gave some of them free uniforms and then, later, I started with the Nelson handwriting which nobody was doing in that area at that time. It encouraged good handwriting from the children. We also incorporated a lot of fun activities that were of high interest to the children. This made parents come to the school regularly to see what we were doing. There were so many things we were doing then that endeared us to the parents.
The name Front liners, what inspired the name? It’s a stand out name that will trigger the interest of most parents to want to come in and make enquiries, so what inspired it?
The inspiration came from the strong will and the belief that I had then that any child that will pass through my school must be at the front line of every good thing, from academic excellence to spiritual prowess, moral integrity, they must be at the front line of every good thing. I made that covenant with God that any child that has left my school must be a frontliner. Wherever people are making waves in any good thing anywhere in the world, not just in Nigeria alone, my pupils must be identified there. That is the motive for that name.
And I want to believe that this is a prophecy that’s been manifesting?
Oh, yes, it is. It’s been like that. The testimonies I have gotten from parents have been amazing and encouraging as well. Some of the messages I get from my old students, a lot of them are abroad, have been very heartwarming. And a lot of the parents have said to me, the foundation you have created ij the lives of these children is second to none. That its not just academically, but even morally, they always stand out wherever they are. Even the children that just finished last July, the parents are already thanking us because their kids are doing very well where they currently are. They are often rated among the top 5 wherever they go and I think that’s a lot of blessing.
How do you handle the recruitment of top quality teachers because this also is one area of concern for most parents when taking their wards to as new school?
Well, I must confess it has not been easy getting the kind of quality hands that I want for the school. But I often take my time while recruiting. I don’t place vacancies in front of the school and say ‘Teachers wanted’ I place adverts in the papers so that I can attract quality hands from far and wide. And when they turn in their applications in hundreds, for me to get five to ten that I can call quality would be a tough task. But we still do everything to get the best hands and select those who have passed through colleges of education and have the experience. You need real quality and experienced hands to handle the kind of new generation kids that we have now.
Parents are also looking to see how the school can improve the spirituality of their children and often times, they look at the owner of the school and hope that her spirituality can reflect on the children. What have you done in that aspect?
We have trained many children to lead the assembly in prayers. We teach them to pray and this has become part of them. We take them through moral training. Right from the assembly, there is this life instruction that we give them. We teach them etiquette, how to behave well when in public gatherings, how to do a lot of things in the midst of people, they have gotten acculturated into all these things. Spiritual aspect of training is very important and we do not take it lightly at Frontliners School. Even at Agbado, we have many Muslim pupils there and we teach them Islamic Instructions too. We have a teacher that does that because we believe they too also need spiritual development.
How much support are private school operators like yourself getting from the government right now? Is the relationship between you and the government getting any better?
I wouldn’t say that, personally, I think it’s getting worse. They keep coming up with all sorts of levies and you begin to wonder what’s going on. Lately we were made to understand that many of these levies the local government forces us to pay don’t really come from the state government. And even the local government, it appears, have some administrators they give the collection of these levies to who now inflate the figures for their own personal gains. We have our own association and we are trying to address these issues. We have taken them to court in the past over high charges of radio and television. We pay our yearly dues. We pay for LASSA, we pay for signage, we pay so many levies. On the transport issue, we pay for well over a dozen papers and if you don’t pay they accost your drivers on the way, they waste their time, impound vehicles with the children in the vehicle. The national president and state president of our association, the Association of Proprietors are doing a whole lot to address these issues we are faced with. Hopefully, by next year, things may get a lot better than they are right now.
How do you plan to celebrate your 20 years anniversary? What shape will it take?
Well, nothing big. Schools don’t have money to throw around like that o (laughs). We just want to appreciate God for bringing us this far and thank Him for His faithfulness. It’s nothing really elaborate. We will of course invite parents and may be some of the old parents too will join us. It’s basically a day of Thanksgiving. It’s a day of singing and dancing and thanking the Lord almighty for standing by us. If I had my way, I will just be singing Hymns to Him all through the celebration.
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