‘Nigerian students need critical analysis skills’

DLD College, London, is one of the most prestigious colleges in the United Kingdom (UK), which since its foundation in 1931, has built a strong reputation among students, parents, schools and universities. Principal of the school, which is one of the colleges under the Abbey DLD Group of Colleges, Mrs. Rachel Borland, prior to moving back to the UK, was principal of a school in Lagos State and Abuja, In this interview with GBENGA SALAU, she spoke on her experience managing Nigerian students.

You have had experiences managing schools in Nigeria and UK, what is the striking difference in the quality of education in both climes?
What we need to do in Nigeria is to make teaching more efficient so that students are interacting more in the classroom. What we often find is some very top academic Nigerian students but who are not in the habit of questioning in the classroom and the level of curiosity isn’t as high as other nationalities. So, I encourage, through staff development, teachers changing their teaching methodology so that students can develop their level of critical analysis, and interact more during lessons, because when they come to the UK, this is what we expect of them. We don’t expect them to be sitting quietly and taking notes, we expect them to be challenging the teacher, because they are a step away from the university, and we need to be preparing them for independent learning that the university requires.

Access to forex in the country is currently a major challenge. Are there policies to help parents soften the pangs of paying fees in hard currency?
What we have done in the Abbey DLD Group of Colleges is to recognise the problem, and it is not going to go away overnight. And we do not want a situation Nigerian students are not able to come to study in our colleges, so we are offering parents a much more flexible payment plan. In the past, the tuition was in two installments in a year, we are now offering a monthly plan.

What is your assessment of Nigerian students?
They are not developed enough in terms of their critical analysis skills. Most have been in boarding schools in Nigeria, and have not developed the independence we are looking for in terms of their learning, so we have to work very quickly with Nigerian students when the first arrive to help them to live that way because in the boarding schools that we have in Nigeria, students are fully occupied throughout the whole day. They are told where to go, what to do and every minute is accounted for. In a boarding school in the UK, you are allowed free time, you are allowed to make decisions about what you do, and that is very difficult sometimes for Nigerian students.

They want to be directed more, that doesn’t happen when you get to the university, so we work very quickly in supporting them so they are able to make decisions properly.

How does having to spend every minute of the day under watchful eyes affect the personality of the students?
We forget that these are young people going into maturity. Certain things in their personalities will change, as they strive to adapt to the environment. What we need to do instead of directing them 100 per cent is to give them choices of different activities that they can do to develop their leadership skills and personality.

What is the percentage of the number of students who go through your colleges that get their first choice universities?
It is very high, about 85 per cent, but they have to receive the grades to be able to do that.

Is it certain that all students that go through your colleges will get admission into universities?
There is such a wide range of universities in the UK; it will always be possible for students to be offered a place in one of them.

However, I can’t grantee the actual end result. That means, it depends on how hard they work.
But we would rather talk about getting students into universities of their first choice because it is not difficult to get into a university if you have met the requirements. The difficulty for any student is to get into the university of their first choice because the admission procedure into universities allow you to apply to five universities but thereafter you are only allowed to retain two offers, the first is the university the student really wants to go to.

A brief about the colleges
At present, we have students from 46 different nationalities. So, we are very rich in terms of the global community we have in our colleges. And we have three colleges, in Manchester, Cambridge and London, and each prepares students for either a foundation programme or a two-year A-Level that takes them through to a top university in the UK.