Nigerians have been told that boarding school system is not to be blamed for bullying and other rots in education. An Anglican venerable, Alex Usifoh, dropped the defence in Port Harcourt last week at the 2021 Christmas Carol event at the Archdeacon Brown Education Centre (ABEC) founded by Christie Toby (PhD), teacher, educationist and wife of former deputy governor of Rivers State, GTG Toby.

The venerable spoke in defence of clamour for banning boarding schools in the wake of the bullying to death of a 12-year-old student of a top school in Lagos. Instead, Usifoh said the problem is not the boarding school system but the kind of school one sent a child, saying boarding system is never bad.

Pointing at ABEC, he said universities everywhere keep revering and referring to ABEC products. He emphatically stated that the need for boarding schools is not because parents cannot train their children but for consecration and concentration, to reduce distraction and for proper reading.

He said the system started decades ago but that it’s failure of government that made private schools to emerge. “Education would have collapsed in Nigeria if not for intervention of private schools,” he said.

Naming some of the ills, he mentioned incessant strikes in universities by the Academic Staff Union of Nigeria (ASUU) which he said could alone crash university education, added to menace of cultism, corruption by lecturers, etc.

Usifoh said ABEC is one of the best schools for any child, and that the proprietress is still bubbling at 80.

On the play, ‘A Child is Born’ by Ibim Semenitari, produced by Dan Kpodoh, the venerable described the play as great, saying it draws a person back to Bethlehem. He said it was amazing what ABEC can do with children.

“I see new things, and high turnover of children that do things by themselves in the school such as saxophonists, instrumentalists, drummers, organists, etc. The place is full of innovation and I can see a do-it-yourself spirit at ABEC.

“If government were to be ABEC, Nigeria would have been paradise. It’s bedrock of innovation and creativity,” he emphasized.

In an interview, the executive director of ABEC, Ibim Semenitari, described the play as an old story but one with a difference because it is ever new and fresh. She said every time at Christmas they are so busy celebrating Him and we are so busy with the rice and stew and forget the essence of the celebration.

“We thought it is good to remind our children that the essence is the gift of salvation, the gift of that fact that in Him is every gift. When you have Jesus, you have everything complete and nothing should bother you. It’s all in one pack, in the pack of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ,” she said.

Semenitari, onetime commissioner for information in Rivers State, a journalist and publisher, said everybody is used to the Nativity Play in the usual way, but that ABEC chose to make it exciting for the children to enjoy. “So, you find that what we had is a contemporary play so that our children could enjoy it. We kept it short and sharp but the message was succinct,” she said.

She admitted that taking children to an ancient play is a difficult task, saying getting them to just sink into those roles is more difficult. “They are not used to doing it this way, orthodox music, the Magnificent, those kinds of music. Even though we had great orchestras you find out that the instruments were something else. Their voices were young and you could see it. They carried it very well.”

On the impact such ancient plays could have on growing children, she said she expected the children to keep growing with the chip of the play in the memories and personality. “It never leaves the minds of those children. There is something about a story that comes alive than just a story of Christmas. In a story that comes alive, you would always remember the scenes, the acting. It will stick. That is the thing about Arts. Often, we don’t realise its importance in our lives.

“Part of what we are doing in the play is to show what Art can do. Yes, every parent wants their child in the sciences but they have to see the value of Art and Music.”

She said a society without Art and Music is a Barbarian society. “Art brings about culture, civilisation, innovation, creativity. A lot of the Science rides on the Art because it allows you to dream and come up with phenomenon and how to create model society. Art shows you the problem of the society and how you can solve it. So, Art is where innovation rides. The ‘mother’ in the play was cuddling the child like her real baby. It was moving. They played themselves into the lines.”

On bullying, Semenitari said it had always existed right from time, perhaps in different variations. “What I think you find now is that the kind of things we see are showing what society has become.

“In this school, we have a behavior policy which all parents, teachers and children sign unto. We also have an anti-bullying policy embedded into the Behavioral policy. Since the Sylvester (Oromoni) incident, we have told the parents we want to strengthen the policy and we want parents and students to make input.

“We will send the draft on purely anti-bullying policy for them to sign onto it just the way they signed the Behaviour Policy. We already have policy on discipline. Children know they can report. Teachers, students, anybody, they know they can report. The children know they can report on ground of anonymity. When they cannot go to hotel teachers, they know they can walk into my office and talk under confidentiality. They know this too well. Parents know they can tell us and nobody will know who said it.

“When it comes to bullying, we have no patience. It is outright expulsion. We do not discuss it. If we get to know, expulsion is immediate,” she explained.