By Debo Oladimeji
If there is anyone who believes more in the slogan: That Education is the key to success, it is Dr. Mrs Bisi Akin-Alabi, a former Special Adviser on Education, Science and Technology in the Abiola Ajimobi-administration in Oyo State, 2015-2019.
An education development expert and founder of SchoolRun Academy an education management and consulting firm, she does not only believe that education holds the key to success, she practices the ideology through brilliant initiatives that has consistently seek to aid indigent children in accessing quality education and youth in exploring even wider, rewarding opportunities home and abroad.
She believes that the passion for learning through fun activities must be reignited in school children so that they imbibe positive attitudes to education and learning thus reducing anti-social behavior and truancy, thereby increasing healthy competition.
Akin-Alabi started teaching 11 to 18 years old Mathematics and science and registered a childcare centre, which grew to 6 centres in London, England.
Her contributions to Excellence in Education and Childcare in the United Kingdom earned her a recognition from former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who invited her to 10 Downing Street, London in March 2001.
At a stage in her life, she felt compelled to take action against identifiable gaps in the education system in her native country Nigeria. So, she took a break from her work in England to lend her skills and contributions to filling those gaps. This is why in 2007 she conceived and established SchoolRun Magazine, a medium that gives access to teachers to learn world best practices and essential skills.
She said: “On getting to Nigeria, I realized the gaps in education and was desirous to fill this. I also found out that private school owners were not investing in staff development and training. The teachers are rusty and lack essential skills for effective teaching and learning. I conceived developing a medium to give access for teachers to learn world best practices and essential skills in bites. So SchoolRun Magazine was born in 2007.
“I then volunteered with Lagos State government as a consultant for the Commissioner of Education, Dr Leke Pitan and supported them on special education needs awareness and training in mainstream schools.
“In 2011, fate brought Mrs Dominga Odebunmi and I together while she was the DG Lagos State Safety Commission and I was appointed the School Safety Administrator for Lagos State from 2011 to 2016. As such I was responsible for content development, training, monitoring standards and advocacy while the Lagos state safety commission was responsible for enforcement of standards. I authored the first School Safety Compliance Manual for Lagos State, published in 2014”, Bisi narrated.
Over the last decade, Bisi has managed the growth of SchoolRun from just a magazine to an education management and consulting firm- SchoolRun Academy. SchoolRun Academy has trained 5500 practitioners, worked with 110 institutions- government and private, completed 3025 projects and received 20 awards.
“My aspiration is to implement a nationwide intervention programme targeted at raising academic attainments through building teachers’ capacities and reigniting their passion for effective teaching and learning.
“This would Integrate continuing professional development (CPD) of educators and proper performance linked incentives, curriculum enrichment with localised education content so that Nigeria can have a fit for purpose educational system. This would ensure the products of the educational system are employable, job ready and can solve our society’s immediate problems thereby adding real value to the Nigerian society”, Bisi said.
She recently launched an InstaLive session themed Education Beyond the Classroom where she tries to plug gaps in educational offerings and bring relevant knowledge to her audience in a bite-sized, easily digestible and friendly manner.
With SchoolRun Academy, Bisi supports state governments on policies in special education, offering trainings and giving access to STEM and digital literacy, civil servant upskilling, quality education transitions, continuing professional development, education business support, employability and more.
Her organization has given scholarships to girls to go to secondary school and university, and is collaborating to do more.
Also versatile in business, the savvy entrepreneur runs a cosmetics line since year 2000, a guest house in the UK and 2 restaurants in NW10, London and Lagos Island.
She had a rough start as a child, at the age of 12 circumstances forced her to flee from her guardian’s home and abandoning her education. Six months after being homeless and ragged, begging on the streets and nearly raped, the brilliant boisterous child reunited with her family and made it back to school to complete her secondary education.
If for any reason Bisi never made it back to school but grew on the streets, her success that is widely celebrated in the Education sector would have never come to be.
So, having narrowly escaped being without education, Bisi, born during the Nigerian civil war in the agrarian town of Igbo-Ora, the Headquarters of Ibarapa Central Local government area of Oyo State in the South-West of Nigeria, spends her time advocating and working for quality and affordable education for the less privilege.
Bisi wears many caps. She is the publisher of SchoolRun Magazine and co-founder of Partners in Education (PIE) initiatives UK, a community interest organisation focused on supporting SMEs and government agencies to deliver world best practices and excellent service in their communities, through human capacity and operation optimisation with the use of recruited volunteers. It also provides opportunities to give relevant awareness of African culture and pride to young people through tourism and cultural exchange programmes.
In 2019, PIE ran a Job experience scheme whereby Secondary school pupils were posted to offices and business locations as junior interns for 2 weeks during the long vacation. “This was a very successful scheme and the children learned relevant work ethics and job experience amongst other things”, Bisi stated.
As an education development expert she also initiated a number of curriculum enrichment activities such as the STEM-Ed programme sponsored by the Airbus foundation In Germany and STEMNets and Festival of Learning, which won Ibadan, the UNESCO Learning City Award in 2019.
Others included digital literacy programme that was powered by ATC, the organization that established two Digital Literacy labs in Ibadan North East Local Government and Ibadan Northwest, and financial literacy programme sponsored by First Bank of Nigeria.
Her vision is to raise competent civil citizens through character education, rolling out initiatives like the positive role modelling and mentoring, assembly pep talks, academic games like physics, mathematics, entrepreneurial and education enrichment trips.
In 2018, she took some pulpils to LADOL barge in Lagos to learn about STEM in action and the career in the oil and gas value chain. The trip included a visit by the pupils to the University of Lagos for an insight into campus life in preparation for higher education.
In September 2020, to help mitigate the draw backs in the education sector occasioned by the COVID-19 crisis, Bisi organized a free eLearning session on zoom that accommodated about 200 teachers.
Akin-Alabi is an alumnus of the University of Lagos, London South Bank University Business School, University of Surrey and Kings College London. Her passionate trust in how education can shape a child for success inspired her to obtain a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) and a National Nursery Examination Board (NNEB) in UK.