A new decade requires innovative strides in order to drive development in a rapidly changing world. It is against this trends that Atlantic hall, a co-educational full boarding secondary school in Lagos has partnered with Sprott school of Business, Carleton University, Canada to deepen experiential learning.
The partnership is seen to be a huge step towards advancement of the school and the students as it approaches its 30th Anniversary this year.
The inter-organisational partnership is geared towards helping its students adapt, with ease to current trends in the educational space and equipping them with necessary skills to enable them become great leaders.
Taiwo Taiwo, chairman, Atlantic Hall Board of Trustees, who is also the founder of the school says the partnership is a means through which critical gaps in terms of learning patterns in the educational system can be covered.
“We are partnering with Carleton University, which is one of the best universities in Canada, because through this partnership, they will be sending teachers, who will support certain critical gaps that we have in our educational system and in that way help our students as well as our teachers build themselves in those areas.
“We are an excellent educational institution and I am very proud to say that we have been adjudicated a spot as one of the top secondary schools in Nigeria but we recognize that the students are lacking certain skills, one of which is experiential learning, creative thinking and writing” Taiwo said.
As the new decade beckons on new strategies, Taiwo stated that the partnership is a strategic vision that will help students of Atlantic Hall embrace the future.
“We recognise that as we reach a new decade that we cannot sit still. This is an ever-changing world and there is no more dynamic a space than the educational space.
“In the future, our students will be talking to computers rather than teachers, they will be learning in totally different ways and it will be foolish of us if we stand still and not help our children to adapt to this ever changing world and in seeking partnerships with dynamic institutions like Carleton University, we know that we are aiding our students to embrace the future.” Taiwo noted.
Speaking on what experiential learning entails, Dana Brown, Dean of Sprott school of Business, Carleton University Canada, said experiential learning is the new way that this current generation of students wishes to learn.
According to Brown, “This generation of students has grown up very differently from the previous generation with access to information and technology. And what they do not need for their educational experience is someone to tell them the facts that are repeated back to them. What they want from their educational experience is to learn by applying knowledge that is gotten in a way that has positive impact in the world”.
Brown observes that experiential learning is helping students in their education journey forward and this system of learning is been practiced at Carleton University.
“We are in a new world, we recognise from the angle of the business school that business leaders in this new world are going to have to behave differently for the sake of all of us to survive, and to make this world a better place. We need good leaders who are thinking, we do not need leaders who are going to apply old models to new problems.
“When we teach experiential learning, we are teaching people to find their values, bring them out for the purpose of reaching their full potential” Brown said.
KELECHI EWUZIE
