‘Returning Rimi College to boarding can restore its past glory’
As a former student of Rimi College, how can you describe the present state of the college in terms of standard of education, facilities and structures?From what I am able to see, government is trying but you know if things are much for government, the impact will not be much. Before, there was an issue […]
As a former student of Rimi College, how can you describe the present state of the college in terms of standard of education, facilities and structures?
From what I am able to see, government is trying but you know if things are much for government, the impact will not be much. Before, there was an issue of making the school to become boarding again in which we the old boys renovated two hostels, trying to make our own contribution to the government and for a long time now we have not seen that coming to pass. If government will take this issue with all seriousness we are still going to do much for the school. For the educational standard in the school, I think the situation is deteriorating. First and famous you can never compare boarding with day school because in the day school, after the school hours, students hardly pay attention to their studies again unlike in the boarding schools where students spend most of their times learning one aspect of their studies or another. We are still praying that the school will be return to its former position as boarding school.
What about the state of facilities including tables, chair and other instructional materials?
Well, they have but you know it can never be enough and the truth is that the boys vandalize them and I think they have only one guard for now in the school. One of our members influenced his brothers in the House of Assembly to donate chairs and if you go there those chairs are only serviceable in the school. In fact they are best in the whole state because they are like foreign chairs due to their quality. And we learn that government is trying to make the place a centre for most exams because of the way the assembly hall is furnished. We, the old boys are still coming to see how we can assist in that respect but the main project we have now is the sporting complex and as soon as government approves it, we are going to come in and make it a reality.
What made the school so popular for every young boy of your days?
At that time, we had very qualified teachers, enough facilities and so on which made the school one of the best in the North. Even the students then were very special because they were very neat and people always admired them. At that time, Rimi College and Queen Amina were the two most popular schools and so many prominent people passed out from this same school. So now, we are trying to see how the good name and past glory of the school can be restored. Now some of the students look very dirty and you can see them wearing bathroom slippers during school hours. I am still emphasising it would have been better to return the school to board.
With frequent encroachment on the school land, does the school still have enough land to operate as a boarding school again?
What we are appealing to the government is that the little space that is remaining should not be allocated to individuals again. Rather it should be used for the development of the school. And with the proposal we have on ground government will reason with us.
Do you still have qualified teachers in school today?
Not really, we have only few but the other time, a lot of teachers were told to go back to school so that they can upgrade their qualifications. The teaching standard can still be boosted and most of the things lacking can still be gotten. If government wants to solve the problem of the educational sector, they can solve it because Lagos State has done it, Kano State is doing it too and other states are also doing it. If government can put in more funds and tie it with political will, it can change the situation for the better.
Rimi (St. Johns) Old Boys Association (ROBA) last weekend held its annual convention, what were the main highlights of the event?
Normally for the old boys, every year we have convention and during the convention we discus so many things concerning our school. Formally St. John College, Rimi College was founded around1949 and had its name changed to Rimi College after it was taken over by the Kaduna State government. It is one of the earliest schools in the state and since establishment, its graduates of the college come together every year to hold meeting. The meeting is being organized for familiarization and discussing issues concerning the school; how to assist the school and other young ones that are coming up. This year, the major problem we discussed was the encroachment of the school land. The school was a boarding school before and normally boarding schools have land mass for expansion and other activities of the students but since the de-boarding of the school, portions of its land have been taken away by the government. The last time we took up the issue, we were told that the school is for the government, so also the land. Truly, the school and the land all belong to the government but it is understandable when government wants to use the land for public use but from what we observed, it is not like that in the case of Rimi College. When a portion of the land was allocated to JAMB, we haven’t complained because it is going to be used in the interest of the public. However, plots were allocated to individuals at the back of the school. Government also allocated another portion of the school land to individuals; after that, they still collected another, sub-divided it and still gave it to individuals. In fact, most of the members of the House of Assembly got some parts of the land. So we as old boys are trying to see how to stop this and put the remaining land left into good use for the school.
We have been helping the school in so many ways, we used to come and renovate some parts of the school, like the 1977 set renovated the assembly hall twice and other sets of old boys are currently building an office there. Before the school has been helping other schools in sporting activities but for a long time now, those activities are not taking place again. We will soon revive sports. We have set up a committee to study the situation and advise us. Our plan is to build a sporting arena just like a mini stadium where we will have indoor games, sport complex hall and other sporting activities.
I read in one of the national dailies some months back that somebody was complaining about confiscation of schools’ land and he even cited example of Rimi College as one of the affected schools. So now we are trying to see how we can contact government to give us the permission on how to help improve the schools. The work is going to cost about N70million.
So how do you intend to source fund for this particular project?
Well, we will tax ourselves first before we can go to others to contribute. But we are in partnership with some organizations and they can help us in this direction. We will also go to the state government to also assist since the college is now owned by it. I am optimistic that we will get something from government. In addition to that we will organize appeal fund for this particular project as we did for other projects in the past.