Why British boarding schools are so eager to open in Nigeria

For a few years, well-off Nigerians have despatched their kids to prestigious British boarding schools – however now a few of these establishments are organising campuses in Africa’s most populous nation.

Final yr, Charterhouse launched a major faculty in town of Lagos and can open a secondary faculty this September.

Rugby Faculty will even start providing secondary training in September. Different well-known establishments, equivalent to Millfield, Wellington Faculty and Harrow, are additionally exploring alternatives in Nigeria.

This clearly all comes with a price ticket for Nigerian mother and father – however the nation’s well-heeled elite have traditionally despatched their kids to the UK for secondary training, drawn to the British curriculum’s rigour, status and international alternatives.

“I am truly enthusiastic about it,” says Karima Oyede, a British-Nigerian administration marketing consultant, whose son is at present in yr 10 at Rugby in the UK however shall be shifting to its Lagos faculty in September.

Her household has been that means to relocate to Nigeria for some time however has not performed so earlier due to the youngsters’s training.

“Having the chance to expertise the British system in his nation of origin is the very best of each worlds,” she says.

Nigeria already has a proliferation of personal schools however high-quality, internationally recognised training throughout the nation will enchantment to many mother and father, significantly those that want to protect their kids’s cultural id.

“African mother and father love the truth that they are giving their kids worldwide standing so they will compete with their counterparts in some other a part of the world, however they do not need their kids to lose their African-ness,” says Ijay Uwakwe-Okoronkwo, the founding father of Nkuzhi Studying Basis in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja.

The tutorial marketing consultant, who advises mother and father and schools on worldwide boarding choices, explains the extra relaxed, much less respectful angle kids return with after going to faculty overseas just isn’t at all times appreciated.

This cultural dilemma extends to the rising dialog round LGBTQ points. Similar-sex relationships and public shows of affection are unlawful in Nigeria and homosexuality just isn’t overtly mentioned or promoted.

It’s one thing that the brand new crop of British schools has taken on board. For instance, whereas Charterhouse UK shows a rainbow flag, the Nigeria faculty doesn’t.

“We’re a British unbiased faculty however sitting firmly inside Nigerian cultural wants,” says John Todd, head of Charterhouse Nigeria.

“There’s this big concern about Western cultural views.

“For fogeys right here, we all know it is a actually massive concern. It is a purpose mother and father are apprehensive concerning the UK schools.

“I am not making a judgement – it is simply the best way it’s.”

British establishments in Nigeria don’t have any alternative however to “comply with the legislation of the land”, he acknowledges, including: “We are 100% compliant.”

Recognising Nigeria’s deeply spiritual society, Charterhouse additionally permits mother and father to take their kids house from the boarding home for Sunday church providers, with the expectation that they return by Monday morning.

There are a number of causes behind the rising curiosity of prestigious British schools in opening campuses in Nigeria.

Whereas areas just like the Center East and China are already saturated with worldwide schools, Africa is comparatively virgin territory.

“Nigeria is the gateway to Africa, and Africa is sort of the final continent for British schools to set up in,” says Mark Brooks, an export champion for the UK’s Division for Enterprise and Commerce.

He organises annual occasions in Nigeria the place about 20 British schools meet potential college students and fogeys.

“Nigeria has an unbelievable repute for producing pushed, high-achieving college students,” says Mr Brooks.

“There isn’t any faculty I work with that hasn’t not too long ago had a Nigerian pupil function head boy or deputy head boy. A pupil might be a part of the sixth type and find yourself being the top boy inside a yr.

“I’ve introduced a whole bunch of head academics to Nigeria over time, and the phrase is out in the UK that we’d like to take Nigeria significantly.”

Timing has additionally proved key, as the price of sending kids to the UK has soared. Simply three years in the past, the trade charge of the native forex was 500 naira to £1; now it stands at 2,200 naira.

On prime of that, the Labour authorities in the UK not too long ago imposed 20% VAT on personal faculty charges.

Past tuition, households face further bills like flights for each college students and visiting mother and father.

Establishing these schools in Nigeria permits households to preserve the identical normal of training whereas considerably decreasing the monetary pressure.

The annual charges at Charterhouse UK, for instance, are round £60,000 ($78,000), whereas the charges at its Lagos campus are equal to roughly £15,000.

“Our major classroom academics are expatriates, however 90% of the workers are native,” says Mr Todd.

By using native folks in roles equivalent to assistant academics, administration, finance, human sources, advertising, services, safety, gardeners, drivers, PAs and secretaries, the college can considerably scale back prices in contrast to the UK, the place labour is way more costly.

An unlimited training hole already exists in Nigeria, with many mother and father choosing personal training of various high quality. Many wrestle to pay the upper charges fairly than sending their kids to authorities schools, which are typically free however suffering from poorly skilled academics and frequent strikes.

Consequently, the arrival of British schools might not drastically change Nigeria’s training system.

Nevertheless, they may pose a menace to established elite schools just like the British Worldwide Faculty in Lagos and The Regent Faculty in Abuja, which opened in the early 2000s.

Such schools have lengthy been prime selections for these in a position to pay the annual tuition charges that always attain tens of hundreds of {dollars}.

“Rugby Faculty Nigeria is coming additionally to help, develop and study from the schools at present in Nigeria,” says Mr Brooks, who’s in cost of the college’s advertising.

“We are coming to assist with partnerships as nicely, trainer coaching, and a complete vary of initiatives.”

Mr Todd believes the Nigerian market is giant sufficient to accommodate all the brand new schools with out threatening present ones. About 40% of the 200 million inhabitants is below 14.

He expects the best influence to be felt in the UK.

Whereas Charterhouse UK usually has an extended ready checklist and shouldn’t be affected, much less sought-after boarding schools might expertise a decline in enrolment owing to the brand new competitors in Nigeria.

“Curiosity in our secondary faculty could be very sturdy,” says Mr Todd. “We have already got Nigerian mother and father in the UK sending their kids to the Charterhouse in Nigeria for September.”

Actually, reaching out to Nigerians in the UK has been one in all their key advertising methods.

“You get this premier model at a lower cost, and each Nigerian has an aunt or uncle in Lagos” who is usually a guardian, he provides.

It could possibly be that this pattern extends to British universities. Nigeria’s tertiary training system faces even better challenges than its secondary sector, with many college students opting to research overseas.

In 2023, Nigeria ranked among the many prime 10 international locations for UK pupil visas, in accordance to UK authorities knowledge.

However with international trade difficulties and stricter visa rules, finding out overseas is changing into more and more difficult – and universities that depend on greater worldwide tuition charges seem to be struggling.

Earlier this month, British MP Helen Hayes, chair of the parliamentary Schooling Committee, acknowledged the UK’s greater training sector was in hassle.

“Dozens of universities are making redundancies and cuts to programs, making an attempt to keep afloat amid uncertainty over the place their cash is coming from,” she stated when asserting a session to think about the sector’s future.

If sufficient Nigerian college students can not go to the UK to research, British universities might discover it worthwhile to come to them, as they’ve elsewhere in the world.

Actually, Nigeria’s premier college, the College of Ibadan, was established in 1948 as a campus of the College of London, with levels awarded carrying the identical worth and status.

Ms Uwakwe-Okoronkwo believes many Nigerian mother and father would respect this chance, as it might enable their kids to keep in Nigeria lengthy sufficient to mature earlier than doubtlessly shifting overseas, in the event that they select to do so.

“Many mother and father are apprehensive about sending their kids out of the nest too early,” she says.

For Ms Oyede, whose daughter will even be beginning at Rugby Faculty in Lagos come September, the timing of all this might not be higher.

She says the British faculty opening has already been an “incentive to return house”.

The prospect of college alternatives could be a welcome bonus.

Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani is a contract Nigerian journalist and novelist based mostly in Abuja and London.