Our mission is to provide world class education — Corona Trust Council

In June, Corona Secondary School (CSS), one of the foremost post-primary schools in Nigeria, which has been providing quality education for over 60 years, became a member of New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), a US-based international non-profit association founded in 1885.

Corona is the first in Nigeria and second in West Africa to become a member of NEASC. At a Press briefing convened by the school’s Trustee Council and led by its chairman, Hon. Justice Bukunola Adebiyi and CSS’ CEO, Mrs. Adeyoyin Adesina to announce the new attainment, the stakeholders spoke on the benefits to the school. Excerpts:

By Ebele Orakpo

BENEFIT: Speaking on what the school stands to gain as a member of NEASC, Justice Adebiyi said they were skeptical initially but after looking at the history of NEASC, “we saw it was an opportunity to challenge ourselves to  deliver world class education with the support of the Trust Council.

“NEASC would benefit the school because it will help us to get the school to international standard. The board provided strategic direction, funding and supported management even when we had some stops along the way. We kept getting the list of items needed to pull up the school in terms of infrastructure and training. Mrs. Adesina, the present CEO was part of the secondary school at the time.”

Membership of NEASC, a body that accredits schools across the world, “is essentially an improvement exercise. There are post-accreditation and other visits that would follow. The next one is in three years; it is a continuous thing. We are not going to rest on our oars. It has helped us to look inward.Members of  staff and  students were part of the process as everybody was interviewed,” said the principal, Mrs. Chinedum Oluwadamilola.

Curriculum:  NAESC is not out to introduce American curriculum “but every school that they accredit must be operating at certain levels that meet international standards. This  cuts across facilities, governance, processes, security, safety etc. The accreditation process has taken us four years and we had four visits. The last visit was this year and at the end, the body met, did the inspection again and finally qualified Corona to be a member of NEASC. We are the only school in Nigeria, second in West Africa and one of the first schools in Africa. We run a Nigerian curriculum.

Accreditation: “The NEASC accreditation process started four years ago. At the time I got to the secondary school, the process had started and we continued because there were lots of things to put in place majorly infrastructure, curriculum, teaching, learning, safety, policies,  governance structure (they needed assurance that there would be continuity in funding for the school to continue to grow) and our financial standing as well.

Those were the areas we needed to put together to ensure that we meet the prescribed standard. We had a steering committee led by the Vice-Principal, Pastoral (Welfare), Mr. Paul Obah and the Secretary, Mr. Anthony Ilobinso.

There was a preliminary visit to determine whether or not we were able to commence that process. The major one was the Self Study visit by six members from Turkey, China, UK, USA, Ghana and Tunisia. They came with a wealth of experience and they knew what they were looking for. They were with us for five days.  Following that visit, they pointed to areas that needed improvement.

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