AS Queen's College, Yaba, celebrates 84 years of its providing excellent girls' education, the Principal, Mrs. Modupe Ladipo, has called on the Federal Government to fulfill its promise of providing adequate classrooms for the school.At the school's Founder's Day celebration, held last Monday in Lagos, during which a new gate and waiting area worth N8million were commissioned, Ladipo told the audience that at 84, which is considered a ripe, old age, Queen's College needs to be revamped and its classrooms expanded.The college, whose products occupy key positions in all the sectors of Nigeria's economy, needs urgent erection of new buildings to accommodate the increasing population of the students.Her words, 'funding is our major problem. We have a lot of old buildings. An 84 year-old person is considered old, not so' So, if you have a school that is 84, quite a number of its buildings will need replacement. Just like the gate, we have this old gate that is held together by rocks and stones, and because the security of the school and lives are important to me, we had to construct a new gate, with the help of friends of the college.'She continued, 'government has made promises, because we complained that we don't have classrooms, hostels are not adequate and good drinking water in the dormitory is not available. The PTA (Parents' Teachers' Association) tried, but it still didn't work. The drainage system in the college is bad. On July 10, this whole place was flooded and government promised to do something about it. So, a lot of work needs to be done.'I will give you an instance, during the admission exercise into the JS1 classes, we had about 3000 students that sat for the interview alone, and we are not going to pick more than 400 out of the 3000, not minding that our real carrying capacity is about 300. But we are pushing it.'On how the school inculcates discipline in the girls, Ladipo noted that because the demand for placement in the college was highly competitive, expulsion measures are in place for ill-behaved students.'They (students) know it was not easy for them to get here. So, we let them know that, once they misbehave in their boarding house, they must leave. They all have this at the back of their minds. Also, every Thursday, we have mentoring session undertaken by the teachers, who talk to them one on one, get to know their personal problems and advise them accordingly,' she added.In his goodwill message, Principal of King's College, Mr. Dele Olapeju, urged the school to continue to be the flagship institution for girls' education in Nigeria.
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