The idea about starting a secondary school came to Biriyai T., of Nigerian origin, when she was completing her Master’s degree program in Geneva in 1997. She was in the Institute of Development Studies and at the end of her time there, she found herself putting down the idea of the school on paper. It is to be a centre with boarding facilities where she would work with adolescents. The school will be founded on Christian principles: a school where we will try to bring up children between the ages of ten and seventeen in the fear of the Lord.
After putting down on paper all that was coming to her, it appeared so very big. At this time, she did not have enough money to buy even a single plot of land (500sqm) and so she put the project aside.
In March 2000, Biriyai went to work for the United Nations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. After a year, she started asking God what she should do with the money she was earning on her job. She was directed to revisit the idea of the school. She did not have the money to build the school but she had enough to buy the land. So with much encouragement from the brethren in Nigeria and her siblings, the site had been identified and she bought the land. She bought 4 acres of land the same year and the next year, she bought one more acre in the same place bringing the total land area to 5 acres (20, 365.50 sq metres). The architectural and other related designs were drawn up in 2005 and she started building. According to the plans, there will be 3 blocks for classrooms, science laboratories, home economics, fine art and library. At two extreme corners of the site there will be the hostels: one for boys and other for girls. There will be accommodation for a number of academic and none academic staff members, cafeteria, assembly hall, a big playground and a volleyball / lawn tennis court.
The school was opened in September 2011 with only 1 big block and one third of another classroom block built. The school is open to anyone who passes the entrance exam whether Christian or not but once admitted, the child abides by the rules of the school. The Government curriculum is used but a lot of room is made for Christian teaching and activities.
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Statistics – Nigeria
- Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country and is composed of more than 250 ethnic groups.
- Nearly 34.8 million adults in Nigeria are considered illiterate, according to 2009 data from UNESCO, which ranked it the highest in sub-Saharan Africa. Illiterate females outnumber males by nearly 2 to 1 – there are at least 12.3 million males without schooling, compared with 22.4 million females, around 64% of Nigeria’s total illiterate population.