It is a school with a natural capacity to make news. Its atmosphere and ambience is the type most investors in university education would pay any amount to locate one. It is surprising none of the new universities springing up here and there today spotted that space long before the Naval Officers’ Wives Association (NOWA) did and located the NOWA Educational Centre, New Karshi, some six years ago. Today, the school is fast establishing itself in the ranking order far beyond Abuja. Well, why not, when its products can find themselves in some of the most established universities in the world any moment from now, a point to which Aondowase Mnguve, the Commandant of the school did not forget to draw attention during Saturday, July 16th, 2016. Speaking of a six-year old journey that he says has taken them to remarkable heights, Lieutenant Commander Aondowase Mnguve expressed confidence that “our students would excel as they transcend to the next phase of life”. The July 16th, 2016 graduation ceremony is that of the 31 pioneer students who opened the school.
No less confident is Mrs Chamberlain Chika, one of the vice-principals who asserted that the school was sending out products fit in learning and in character. This set, said she, grew with the discipline and high standards with which the pioneer commandant, Commodore M O Amoda inaugurated the school and which subsequent commandants have strengthened. As the Vice-Principal in charge of academics, her words carry weight in this matter.
Last Saturday’s graduation ceremony was a mini-convocation, from the nature and sequence of activities to the spectacle of nursery kids decked in the school’s academic gown. Again, why not? They were graduands in their own right, having completed the nursery segment. It was captivating looking at those ones and their significance for Nigeria’s future. Looking at them also compels the question how well Nigeria takes care of teachers, the most strategic intervening variable between these kids and the future in question. Added to the dramatic performance and the choreography session enacted by some of the students, one could conclude that these children might be less stiff and more imaginative in their own time. May they not disappoint Nigeria, the same message that the Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Ibok Ette Ibas sent to the school.
In the speech read on his behalf at the ceremony, the naval boss declared to the students: “our great country Nigeria awaits you as great leaders of tomorrow. You, therefore, need to do the utmost to seek sound knowledge”. Not only did he want them to seek sound knowledge, they must also seek healthy competition that would bring out virtues deposited in them by the school and in a way that benchmark humanity. His security mindset then came to the fore in his warning to the students to bear in mind that the next phase is the wider world where opportunities for greatness exist alongside pervasive vices. “So, be determined to shun any tendency that may want to lure you into cybercrimes, terrorism and other misdeeds”. Mrs Theresa Ibas, the National President of NOWA emphasised this same point but from a slightly different entry point: tasking parents to ensure that the graduating students “continue to tread in the right path”. She devoted the rest of her speech to a celebratory account of the successes of the school so far, among them their first position in Nasarawa State in the National Common Entrance and overall best position in the state in the 2016 Cowbell Pedia Mathematics Competition for Secondary Schools. She capped her repertoire with Three ‘Gbosa’ to “our beloved dedicated staff and teachers”. Elsewhere in her speech, she had referred to “our dedicated teachers” as the source of the good morals and hard work of the students.
Continuing this uncommon humility in openly giving credit to subordinates, the commandant had equally commended the two vice-principals for tenacity and the staff for “resourcefulness in bringing up the students on the firm foundation of hard work and discipline”. The military consciousness showed up here too in his choice of words. After expressing gratitude to NOWA President and other stakeholders for the various contributions listed to their credit, the Commandant stressed how the school would continue to bombard the stakeholders with more requests for assistance or they could not succeed in their determination to improve things. It elicited not a little laughter across. He had in mind sustaining their current records such as the results of their candidates in the National Common Entrance Examination, that of the secondary school section in the just concluded JAMB as well as other external examinations so far.
Rounding up, Mister Ugoh, the Vice-Principal in charge of administration maintained that the school might not be perfect but there is no going back on the determination to restore the old tradition in public schools. At the moment, the school is not only co-educational but open to every religion and race. A glossy production capturing every actor in the unfolding drama – students, teachers and auxiliary staff, was launched at the occasion.
