The girls look smart and clean in their blue uniform, beret and blazer. The senior girls distinguish themselves by their sleeveless top and skirt, while the junior ones’ short-sleeve top and pinafore stand them out. Junior or senior, one thing unites them: they are all proud students of Queen’s College, Onike, Lagos.
Queen’s College, located on Lancaster Road, Sabo, Yaba, Lagos, like a few first generation secondary schools in Nigeria, is many cuts above the common run of middle-level educational institutions in the country.
However, unlike many of its first generation contemporaries that time and neglect have condemned to an eyesore, Queen’s College still struts its beauty, and expansively so. At 91 years old, the school boasts the size, ambience and quality of a tertiary institution.
From the security detail at the gate, to the documentation demands that a visitor must comply with before he can access the premises, to the array of structures on the large expanse of land, the consistent efforts to maintain a tradition of elegance at Queen’s College is evident.
The school is administered by a principal and five vice principals (VP), with different heads of departments and units. The school has VPs for Special Duties, Students Affairs and Administration, as well as for Academic (Junior) and Academic (Senior).
Also, there are heads of Natural Sciences, Language, Guidance and Counselling, Bookstore, ICT, House Mistress, Clinic and many others.
A remark in 1997 by a former Principal of the school, Mrs M. Sojinrin, described the school as the Nigerian equivalent of the elite public schools in England. “For this reason, the history of education in Nigeria cannot be written without QC playing a prominent role in it,” she said.
Birth
Queen’s College, the first government-owned secondary school for girls in Nigeria, was established through the effort of the New Era Ladies Club. The club, a coterie of enlightened women, argued that government’s intervention in the provision of secondary education for boys must be replicated with girls. Their cause was what today’s feminist would term “discrimination in favour of the girl child.”
The ladies’ club gave practical vent to its belief, raising funds and forcing the hands of the colonial administration to establish a full term high school for girls. Fortunately, the club had the wife of the then colonial governor of Lagos, Lady Hugh Clifford, as its chief patron, while Lady Oyinkan Abayomi was a prominent member. The women’s arguments were persuasive and rational, and the colonial government caved in. It was a quiet revolution when, after some time, they convinced the colonial administration to establish the Government Secondary School for Girls, by which Queen’s College was known then. So, in October 1927, the College was born.
Twenty girls constituted the initial population of the school: 13 were admitted to Form One and seven into Form Two. Ebunola Ajagbe, Florence Williams and Oluyemi Alakija were some of the pioneer names, with Ajagbe emerging as the first Head Girl of the school. The first Principal of the school from 1927 to 1930 was Miss Faith Wordsworth, who worked with an initial team of eight part-time teachers, including Lady Abayomi, the only Nigerian member of the foundation staff. Together, they set the standards that the school boasts of today.
In 1927, the school had was only one solid structure, a storey building. The classrooms were on the ground floor and the Principal’s office was on top. The other buildings were made of planks. The Principal’s house was adjacent to the school building, while the boarding house was behind her house. The boarding house was made up of only one long dormitory, raised on stilts, while the wall and floor were made of planks.
A student’s school fee per term was three pounds, three shillings (three guineas), while another one pound five shillings per term was paid for lunch. Sports were introduced immediately and the girls played hockey, lawn tennis and netball.
When the school was established, it was initially situated at the corner of Force Road parallel to the Government House. It was near the Old Charity Yard, opposite the then paddock where horses were assembled for races, very close to the old Race Course of the present Tafawa Balewa Square.
The many firsts
Between when the school was established and now, the school has produced many first women in Nigeria. Among them are the first woman editor, Mrs Margaret Young; the first Nigerian woman doctor to practise in Nigeria, Dr Elizabeth A. Awoliyi; the first Nigerian female professor, Prof. Adetoun Ogunsheye; first female Nigerian judge, Justice Omo-Eboh; first female Permanent Secretary and Chief F. A. Ighodalo. In fact, the school, according to the President of Queen’s College Old Girls Association, Dr Funmi Ajose, once had the oldest sickle cell sufferer in the world, Alhaja Asiata Aduke Onikoyi-Laguda, who will turn 93 on November 1.
Growth
From that humble beginning with only 20 students in 1927, the school now has over 4,000 students, both in the junior and senior arms for the 2018/2019 session. Over 3,000 of that figure are boarders.
There is no fewer than 400 staff members in both the teaching and non-teaching units, said the VP, Students Affairs, Mrs Chinyere Okeke, who the school had employed in 1991 as a teacher.
Admission
Some students told Daily Trust on Sunday they were admitted into the school after they passed their common entrance examination and not due to any “long leg”. Okeke said, “We only admit the best girls in the country. We don’t admit any girl who scores below 170. Some score 180, 200 in their examination.”
A parent whose daughter once made a futile effort at securing admission into Queen’s College, didn’t, however, completely agree with Mrs Okeke. The parent, while concurring that the student admission standard at the school was high, said his experience showed him that as in similar situations in Nigeria, high level connections come into play in admitting students into the school. He explained that this can’t understandably be ruled out as Queen’s College is regarded as an elite school and competition for spaces is very high.
A look at the Year Book for the recently graduated students showed that QC had students from all the states in Nigeria, with most of the day students being Lagos residents.
The scandal
Queen’s College is not without any scandal. In 2017, three students of the school—Vivian Osuiniyi, Bithia Itulua and Praise Sodipo—died while many others were hospitalised after a diarrhoea outbreak in the school.
According to reports, many pupils of the school were admitted into the sickbay after eating spaghetti and drinking water said to have been contaminated.
Investigations revealed that lapses from the Federal Ministry of Education allegedly caused the death of the three students.
A petition dated June 19, 2017 by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), stated that the students died due to “systemic corruption and the failure of the authorities to exercise due diligence.”
The Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole, led a team to the school and ordered an investigation into the incident, though its then Principal, Dr Lami Amodu, denied the epidemic, blaming the report on haters of the school.
The Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Dr Jide Idris, released a statement a few weeks after the deaths that health records from the school’s sickbay indicated that a total of 1,222 pupils had presented themselves at the school’s clinic on account of abdominal pain, fever, vomiting and diarrhoea.
It was gathered that the school’s soak-away pit was filled and some faecal substance infiltrated into the borehole, which was nearby, hence the drinking water was coloured and smelly. After drinking it and eating from the food cooked with the water, some students became ill and the school management did not do the needful until it escalated and resulted in the death of the three girls and hospitalisation of many.
Reforms
Dr Ajose informed that the sewage had been cleared. She added that in the Old Girls’ Association’s contributions to maintaining the school’s standard, damaged doors and windows were repaired, and damaged metal doors were also welded.
She said, “The Old Girls raised N35 million, while another N350m was sourced from government as additional subvention for the 2018 academic session. The money realised was spent on cleaning and renovation of the dining hall, and making the dormitory better as it was poorly ventilated.
“We spent money on a new water treatment plant, a new block of dormitories and a new sewage plant,” she said.
Asides those, the bed springs were replaced as some were rusty and needed welding. They were thereafter resprayed. All the bedbug infested mattresses were all condemned and new mattresses were bought by the parents. Mosquito nets were replaced. Lots of water tanks were changed because some had no covers. The classroom needed lots of renovation.
“The girls are now treated well. They eat well. I went to the dining recently and saw them eating jollof rice and chicken. That’s the kind of meal we ate during our time, 50 years ago,” she said.
To avoid a reoccurrence of the 2017 tragedy, a doctor has been employed to be on ground permanently. The doctor is paid by both the school and the parents. All students will do routine checks. The pharmacy and sick bay are well stocked, she added.
