Tutor General/Permanent Secretary, District 3, Lagos State Ministry of Education, Mrs Wonuola Idris and Ikem during the commissioning in Lagos recently

Donates block of classrooms to Okesuna Senior High School

After an intial successful test run, the Nigerian Breweries plc recently commenced the 2012 series of its career guidance programme for senior secondary students,. at the Baptist Senior High School, Obanikoro. Lagos.
The programme, tagged, Beyond the School” (BTS), is part of the company’s contribution to improving the quality of education in Nigeria. The initiative seeks to develop secondary students’ ability to choose courses of study in line with their natural talents and interests.
The career counselling programme features career talks designed to guide students in the SS1-SS3 streams in public schools, on key considerations that should influence their choices of future careers.
Sponsored by the Nigerian Breweries/Felix Ohiwerei Education Trust Fund, the programme was initiated in 2011, with Lagos state as a pilot. After recording a good measure of success in all the pilot schools, the company is further motivated to sustain and extend it to cover more public schools in Lagos.
The career talks have also been complemented with the donation of books to benefiting schools, the distribution of career guide pamphlets and note pads to the students.
The programme complements the company’s other education-oriented initiatives such as the provision of infrastructure to schools, award of scholarships, the National Reading Competition and the Creative Writing Workshop, which aims at sharpening the creative writing skills of budding Nigerian youths.
Baptist Senior High School students, who benefited from the recent programme were captivated as they were taken through the course on career options available to them after school.
The first leg of presentations to students featured experts in various field of specialization. Project Champion, Mrs. Clementine Vervelde advised the students to discover their abilities, talents and areas of interest, and be ready to take advantage of their chosen career opportunities in future.
According to her, the students must believe in themselves and stand up boldly to the challenges they might encounter in their career pathways.
Addressing members of the School-Based Community Relations Committee, represented by the Chairman, Mr. Samuel Adekunle, she enjoined parents to allow their children make career choices themselves in addition to vital parental input and advice.
Explaining the vision for the initiative, she said “The ‘Beyond the School Initiative’ put together for Senior Secondary School Students in selected public schools, is one of Nigerian Breweries’ intervention programmes to uplift the quality of education in Nigeria, as part of its corporate social responsibility agenda. It is designed to expose students to career options and factors they need to consider before making a career choice.”.
Mr.Vivian Ikem, NB’s Corporate Social Responsibility /Sustainability Manager, noted that the initiative was concieved to complement other initiatives of the company targeted at the education sector. He charged students to take advantage of the career guidance information provided to them, which has been developed in line with best practices, to achieve their fullest potential. .