Seeing the 100% success rates of their predecessors in UTME and SSCE
serves as additional motivation for our students
Interview granted by Mallam Sheriff Olashinde, Director Al-Hijrah College, to the media (Daily Trust Newspaper) on August 28, 2020.

Q: How come we don’t read about any particular Al-Hijrah College student wining national and international academic competitions?

A: Our strategy is to ensure that all our students are winners. We quite understand what it takes to identify and coach 0.1% of your students to win such competitions. We have chosen a deliberate strategy of focusing on the success of 100% of our students, both in WAEC and in UTME. We don’t fault other schools for being different, we are quite happy with our students results - 100% of them.

That is why, when you review our statistics, we publish the results of all our students, unlike most schools that celebrate exceptional success cases once in a few years, we celebrate everyone of our students. Alhamdullah, they have all been winners.

In fact, in our history, our lowest UTME score has been 192 and that was in the year 2016. We have had a total of just four UTME scores of 200 or less in all the years combined. In the last WAEC, about 75% of our students had seven or more distinctions, that included both English Language and Mathematics. Success of all our students in the UTME and SSCE are our focus, not having one student win an international competition once in every five years.

Q: Many schools flaunt outstanding results but the prevalence of examination malpractices in our society makes it hard to believe these results. Are your results any different?

A: Examination malpractice is a cancer destroying the very fabric of our education system specifically, and our society as a whole. It kills the best in these kids and makes them a burden on the society in the long run.

It is unislamic to cheat in an examination. It is a matter of our faith. So, we do everything required to ensure examination malpractices can not occur in our environment.

Generally, students and their teachers resort to cheating for three reasons. Firstly, when they can’t see a path to success without cheating. Secondly, when the environments where the examinations are being conducted are enabling malpractices. Finally, when there is a belief that those who cheat will suffer no negative consequences.

We address all three effectively. Because all our students know that they only have themselves to rely upon to succeed in all examinations, they put their best efforts to study appropriately, right from JSS1. Seeing the 100% success rates of their predecessors in UTME and SSCE serves as additional motivation for our students, their parents and our staff to believe in their abilities to succeed without compromise.

We pay a great deal of attention to the learning processes, not just the final results. This way, our students, their parents and staff are confident of the input and thus have no reason to resort to malpractices.

Since the year 2017, we deploy CCTV to monitor all our external examinations to ensure we can always go back and review the video, should the need arise. Our staff are not allowed in our external examination halls, from the moment the question papers are unsealed.

Finally, every one of our students, alumni and their parents can attest to the integrity of the conducts of our examinations. Our alumni are in most top universities in the country, anyone can walk to them and interview any of them.

Q: Mathematics determines who progresses through secondary school with smile or otherwise. Your WAEC results showed a 100% pass rate; how do you achieve this?

A: It is about creating a system that works for each and every child according to their individual level. Maths remains the only subject in which a student can score 100% everytime. We have come to recognise that every kid has the potential to excel in Maths with the possible exception of those with significant learning disabilities.

No student of the Al-Hijrah College has ever failed Maths at SSCE.

84% of our Class of 2019 had distinctions in WAEC Maths, and our average Maths score in the 2020 UTME is 80%.

And this isn’t about any ‘Maths brain’. The school’s pass mark in its JSS1 entrance examination is 40% in Maths (Ugo C Ugo’s level of difficulties). Any applicant who scores less than 40% in Maths is given special test to determine if he or she has severe learning difficulties. Once proven not to have severe learning difficulties, even those who score below 40% in Maths are admitted.

That has been the policy for the last nine years and the system has not failed a single kid to date, alhamdullah.

Q: So, how does Al-Hijrah College teach Maths?

Firstly we build the confidence of each student in his or her ability to excel in Maths. Depending on the confidence levels upon admission, some get to be with us for three years before they start seeing Maths for what it is - a surmountable challenge.

Secondly, and most importantly, we monitor the progress of each student keenly to determine necessary interventions. Those challenged in Maths, we refer to them as Exceptional Students, are tracked, and coached separately, until they overcome their challenges.

Finally, we don’t joke with Maths. In fact, all our JSS1, JSS2, SSS1, and SSS2 students are currently having Maths Online Summer Holiday Extension Classes - Monday to Friday.

Summarily, our results in Maths is made possible by guidance of Allah and dedication to the subject.

Q: Listening to you, one may conclude that everything is perfect in Al-Hijrah College. Are you perfect?

A: Subhannallah, only Allah is perfect. We have a lot of rooms for improvement. We are quite unhappy with our performances in the Arabic Language SSCE.

In accordance with our policy, each of our students must take nine subjects in the GCE at the end of his or her SSS2 classes. The subjects must include the Islamic Studies and Arabic Language, even for those aspiring to be engineers or medical doctors. Typically, after SSS2, most students drop these two subjects after the GCE to focus on the other subjects they will be taking in their UTME and SSS3 WAEC.

In the end of SSS2 GCE, nearly all our students have credit or better in six or more subjects, including English Language, Mathematics, Islamic Studies, Economics, Physics, Chemistry, Further Mathematics, Government, and Biology. Regrettably, our students mostly score D7 or E8 in Arabic Language.

Unlike Economics, Physics, Chemistry, Further Mathematics, Government and Biology which the students had studied only for two years at the time of the GCE, our students would have been studying the Arabic Language for five years (from JSS1) if not earlier in primary schools. In fact, nearly all of our students do very well in Arabic Language in their end of JSS3 BECE.

So, we find it very frustrating that our efforts at having every student excel in the Arabic Language are not translating to success at the GCE.

Q: What do you think is the reason why your average student, with distinctions in seven or more subjects, aren’t passing the Arabic Language?

A: We have reached out to dozens of other top schools across the country and discovered that we all share the same abysmal records in the Arabic Language at the SSCE level. We understand that the situation is so pathetic that several Arabic Language degree programmes in Nigerian universities are facing potential closure because there aren’t enough applicants. You can’t confidently apply to study the Arabic Language in the university without a credit pass in the subject at the SSCE level.

It seems as if, the examiners who came up with the syllabi and the marking schemes of the SSCE Arabic Language have the objective of phasing out Arabic Language from the SSCE and Nigerian universities. Else, the grading would give every student an equal chance of scoring a distinction in Economics, Physics, Chemistry, Further Mathematics, Government, Biology and Arabic Language alike, given an equal level of commitment to these subjects. The examiners have to know what they are doing when a kid can spend more time on Arabic Language than Physics, Chemistry and Further Mathematics combined; while scoring distinctions in each of these three subjects, the kid may still fail the Arabic Language. Already we struggle to convince theparents of our students to register their children for the Arabic Language. We leave these Arabic Language examiners to Allah who will judge them. Allah knows their intentions.

Q: A good number of your students are in top Canadian, American and European Universities; how do you combine Nigerian, Canadian, American, and British Curricula?

A: We have natural advantages over many others when it comes to the issue of preparation of our students for international university admissions for two main reasons.

Firstly, the founding fathers of Al-Hijrah College, who are our board members, have the benefit of education in Canada, UK, France, Malaysia, Ukraine, USA, South Africa, China, The Netherlands, Philippines, and Norway.

therlands, Philippines, and Norway. Secondly, amongst our students are nationals of USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, and France. So, we have the parents of these international students partnering with us as we prepare their kids for their university admissions.

Therefore, the key to our students success in international admissions is a strategy that builds on our founders’ wealth of practical experiences and those of our international customers.

Please note the following four facts.

The so called American Curriculum and Canadian Curriculum are unknown in America and in Canada respectively. These curricula are introduced in Nigeria for marketing purposes, to give uninformed parents comfort that their children are following some alien standards. The following two comments explain this better.

“The American curriculum (although a better name would be ‘50 states 50 curricula’).... The very name ‘American Curriculum’ is a misnomer. All fifty states and most major cities/school districts set their own curriculum frameworks, priorities, funding, standards, tests and scheduling.” www.goodschoolsguide.co.uk

“Canada does not have a national curriculum; rather, the provincial governments are responsible for establishing the curriculum for their schools, and each province has its own, ministryestablished common curriculum.” www.ncee.org

The second fact we want you to note is that, practically, all top international universities admit foreign students who are at least 17 or 18 years old. Most students complete their SSS3 in Nigeria at age 16 or less. Rarely is a 16 years old, male or female child, matured enough for independent life, and study, half the world away.

Thirdly, nearly all these universities conclude their admission cycles by May, for students resuming in September, even for their local applicants. These universities conclude international admission decisions much earlier to give these applicants ample time to process their student visas. For instance, Canadian student visas can sometimes take five months to process.

Fourthly, an applicant needs two things to gain admission into any top university across the globe - excellent academic performances in his or her local final high school examinations (in our case WAEC), and knowledge of the requirements that must be met to submit a successful application to the specific university of interest, doing the right things at the right times.

For instance, despite thousands of kids doing Cambridge IGCSE and Cambridge A/L examinations in Nigeria, year after year, there is a total of just 11 (eleven) Nigerian undergraduate students in the Cambridge University (https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/nigeria). That is, an average of less than four Nigerian undergraduates are admitted yearly by the university. Since Cambridge IGCSE and Cambridge A/L are not even compulsory for admission into the Cambridge University, some of these eleven Nigerians may not have taken either of these two examinations. In addition, a number of these Nigerian undergraduate students would have attended UK based high schools.

Q: So, how do your students prepare for admission into top international universities?

Using our knowledge of all the four facts mentioned above, we break down the process of preparing our students for international admissions into two phases, phase one being the UTME and WAEC.

Rather than attempting to overstretch our students with multiple international curricula, we focus on making sure they come out with the best results possible in their UTME and WAEC. It may interest you to learn that even for our students intending to study abroad, we insist on excellent performances in the UTME. The purpose of the UTME is for the kids to acquire the knowledge of all the topics in the UTME syllabus, as part of the kids preparation for the WAEC and subsequent international examinations. Our students complete this phase typically at age 16.

The second phase, international admission processing, starts immediately after WAEC. In a nutshell, best to submit completed applications to international universities no later than December, preceding the academic session being applied for. Accordingly, our students use the six months following the end of their WAEC to process their international applications for resumption in September of the following year.

Besides good WAEC and TOEFL results, many, not all, universities in the USA recommend applicants should take the SAT.

After acing the UTME and WAEC, to do very well in TOEFL, about a couple of weeks of specialised practice is all that is required, in our experience. Similarly, such student needs about two months of proper preparation to ace the SAT. We therefore recommend that our students take TOEFL and SAT no later than end of November preceding the academic session being applied for. That way all three results - WAEC, TOEFL and SAT would be available for them to successfully submit their applications no later than the end of December.

Accordingly, at age 17, they have a realistic chance of admission into international universities accepting applicants aged 17. Many international universities will still not admit a student under the age of 18. Regrettably, there is not much a kid intent to attend such universities can do than to wait until he or she reaches the appropriate age.

The above works perfectly well for most countries, with a few exceptions, which include the UK. Nearly all UK universities admissions are based on the A/L results. Thus a student intending to study in the UK will have to use the WAEC results to register for an A/L programme. Cambridge IGCSE or WAEC are equally acceptable for admission into A/L programmes.

Q: COVID-19 caused unprecedented disruption to school operations. How have you been coping?

A: Indeed, Covid-19 caused significant disruptions to the learning process of our students. Using Online learning tools, we worked with the parents and the students to salvage what we could from the remainder of the last academic session.

According to our calendar, our SSS3 students have no break between the Second and Third Terms. Despite Covid-19 school lockdown on Saturday 21st of March, these students resumed online on the Monday 30th of March.

The Online Term commenced for the rest of our student population on 4th of May. The Term’s examinations were conducted in accordance with our original Third Term calendar, and concluded on the 26th of July.

Alhamdullah, we were able to achieve our target for the session. We covered 100% of our syllabus for every subject, and for every class.

Q: Are you saying online classes can work as well as standard classes, with physical interaction between teachers and students?

A: Online Classes offer tremendous opportunities to reach learners all over the globe. It is undoubtedly here to stay.

However, Online Classes are not appropriate for everyone, in every situation, especially when we are dealing with children of secondary school age. The atmosphere at home, where the kid will be studying, has to be supportive, in order for the kid to get the best results possible. Specifically, the parents must ensure the kid will not be positioned to get carried away by the internet, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and a host of many other possible online distractions. Without the supervision of committed adults, an average kid has no ability to resist these temptations. The most important role of the adults is to ensure the kids have neither real online privacy, nor expectations of online privacy.

The last term was our first time holding a whole term online. Thus, we had significant room for improvement, many of which would be corrected today, if we are to do it over. Summarily, last term was also a learning opportunity for our teachers as well, and we took advantage of the opportunity.

One of the lessons we learnt was that we can actually have online extension classes for all our students. So, we allowed our students two weeks of Eid Break, and from Monday, August 10, we commenced our Online Extension Programme focusing on Mathematics, Arabic Language and Qur’an Memorisation. This online extension programme covers all our students except SSS3 and JSS3 that are preparing for their postponed final examinations the old fashioned way.

Another takeaway from the online term is our plan to introduce online programmes in Yoruba and Hausa Languages within 2020/2021 Academic Session. Our students and staff are Yorubas and Hausas from all over the country. Too many of the kids come to us not speaking their “native” languages. We are already experienced in handling kids who come to us not speaking the English Language.

Q: How has Covid-19 affected the conduct of your entrance examination?

A: Our entrance examinations have been online Computer-Based Test for five sessions. Since 2015, applicants take our entrance examinations from the comfort of their homes.

Our admission process has not change a bit. Applicants download the application form from alhijrahcollege.com, complete and submit the form electronically. Thereafter, our customer service representative would contact the parents to agree the dates and times convenient for the candidates to take the entrance examinations from the comfort of their homes while we monitor the examination process through online video in real time. The results of the examinations are released, and offer of admission made to successful applicants on the same day of examinations.

Accordingly, Covid-19 has had no impact whatsoever, on the conduct of our entrance examinations.

Q: How does your location, along the LagosIbadan Expressway, affect your school operations?

A: We are 100% boarding. So our location is perfectly suited for the nature of our operations. We presently have a good number of our students from the FCT, all South Western States, and several other states, including Kaduna, Kano, Rivers, Edo, Kwara and Jigawa States. We also have students from Europe, America and Middle East, most of whom are coming into Nigeria for the first time.

We value the diversity of our student body which gives them an opportunity to learn about other people, countries, and cultures in a respectable manner.

So we go to great lengths to coordinate transport arrangements with parents to ease the movements of our students from any part of the world. We have a Liaison Office on the CMD Road, Magodo, Lagos where we pick up and drop most Lagos residents. We also pick and drop students at the airports, and bus terminals in Lagos and Ibadan. For instance, when the government announced school closure in March due to the COVID-19, we were able to conveniently get all our students to their respective homes before the commencement of the lockdown.