Today as I write the 19th piece of this series, I am excited that we are getting close to the end of this journey we began some days back. I agree that there is a fulfilment, which comes with completion. We must embrace completion in our quest to raise our children. We must not abandon them midway, irrespective of the challenges. I always believe that where there is a will, there is a way. Our goal must be to prepare our children for a responsible adulthood.
Today I share the 14th fact you must consider before you register your child in a school: where are the products of the school? A school is defined by its product. In fact, I must declare that a school will never be greater than its products. The proof of sanity or otherwise of a school is its products. The curriculum of a school is everything the child picks in the school system when he is leaving the school.
As you plan to register your child in a school, you may want to observe their present and past products. You may want to observe the attitude of the system to their present products. You may want to interact with the products and see if they represent what the school claim to represent. You may want to find out if they have a program of following up the progress of the children, who pass through them. Do they have a robust alumni program, which testifies that the children they trained turned out as expected? If they do not have a robust alumni follow-up program, the question then is how are they persuaded that the values they represent are working. A school, who has graduated at least one set of pupils, must be in a position to monitor the progress of the children, who have passed through them as a proof of their effectiveness.
The testimonies of their products must become one of their most priceless assets. When you treat a child the way, he should go; he does not begin to manifest the evidence of the training until he is old. Therefore if a school is not interested in what becomes of their products in life, they may not be interested in developing children. When I talk about life, I am not only talking about academic excellent. I am talking about, what kind of man or woman he/she has become? What kind of spouse he/she has become? What kind of parents he/she has become? What kind of citizen he/she has become? Above all how much of who he/she has become is traceable to the training the child received while in the school. A relationship with the products will help the school to know if it was able to put in the products all the ingredients that was supposed to make product fit for the use of self and humanity. Please note that it is the practice of any manufacturer to list on the pack of its products the ingredients, which make up the products. If any of the ingredient is missing, it means the product, though wrapped in the best of packaging is defective. It is now the responsibility of internal quality control department and regulatory bodies like SON and NAFDAC to ensure that there is conformity between the listed ingredients on the pack and the actual ingredients on the pack. It does not matter the kind of graduation ceremony a school initiates or the kind of graduation gown they wear or the beauty of the certificate they issue, graduation ceremony makes no sense if the ingredients listed in the certificate or suggested by the colourful nature of the graduation ceremony, has not been deposited in the child.
If the school does not have a directory of its products, it means it does not monitor the progress of its products to see if they are excellent products or factory rejects as a result of production errors. If the school does not monitor progress, it means every child, which enrols in the school becomes a guinea pig of the school’s values. Please note that how long the school has been in existence will count here. By the foregoing, I am not saying do not register your child in a new school. In cases of new school, you may want to consider the history of its leaders and the products, who have come through them.
Thank you for having me. I am out of here today. I urge you friends, Think the Child, Think Today, Think the Future. Have an INSPIRED day.