Okorie Esther: Eduprenuer with a difference

Okorie Esther is founder of Namzec International School, a primary and secondary school known for academic excellence. Namzec grew from being an ordinary school made up of five students to an institution with over 300 students.

Esther started the business owing to her love and passion for teaching. She did not start running a school basically to make money but to impact knowledge and help to improve the quality of education in the country.

She made up her mind to teach ethics to her students in order to make meaningful impact on the pupils and students while raising a generation of people with sound morals.

“I started with five children, teaching them in my sitting room. Their parents were insisting that I start a school, but being a proprietress requires a lot like checking the teachers’ note books every week to ensure that they are not behind the scheme. I started with five students but by the grace of God we have over 300 students,” she told Start-Up Digest.

“Starting the business depends on the individual. There are schools everywhere: under the tree, and every corner in the environment, but schools require good equipment, functional laboratories and children gadgets. The most important thing, for me, is to give qualitative and standard education. My children have been involved in so many entrance examinations and they also come out in flying colours. They are doing well, and anywhere they find themselves, people appreciate them,” Esther disclosed.

Speaking on how she was able to raise her start-up capital, she said proper budgeting and planning helped her from the outset.

“Raising my start-up capital was not easy. It was only by God’s grace, budgeting and right planning that I was able to do it. I kept on saving every little penny I got from the lessons I did and other sources of income because I was determined. I paid a price for this to come true,” she proudly stated.

Speaking further about the qualities of her prestigious school, she said, “We have computer and science laboratory/club, where a lot of experiments are done. We also have experts in technology that ensure that the children innovate something every week,” she explained.

The method of teaching at Namzec International School varies. It provides Montessori teaching, and the proprietress ensures that children are free and allowed to speak up when there is a problem.

“I also make sure that my teachers are friendly to the children, especially the ones that learn after many days. But we constantly remind them of past lessons and allow them to exercise freedom of expression. There are some children that take two days to understand and some understand immediately. So the teacher needs to be friendly to enable them speak up in class,” she stated.

She ensures that the teachers encourage children that find it difficult to learn, stating that education starts from the mind of the child, making the child see the importance to study and believe that nothing is too difficult to learn.

“What makes us unique regardless of the competition in the environment is that we have different clubs– the literature, cultural clubs and others– which provide opportunity for them to learn different handicrafts like beads making, Ankara craft and others,” she noted.

Esther’s desire is to make children discover their talents and their passion so that they can become professionals even before they get to the expected age.

“The quality of education is dropping, but in this case, parents and authorities of schools need to work for the better. I observe that some students only read to pass and after exam they forget everything. So what we do here is that we make sure that they study every day, adopting different methods in order not to bore them. We always go back to their previous work, we give them assignments or test from their previous work unexpectedly, which propels them to study better,” she explained.

She believes that one of her major challenges is finance with which to get more qualified teachers.

“Getting better qualified teachers takes a lot because the salary is more. Many parents do not know what it means for a child to be in my school. They only care about the fact that they are in school, not minding the standard of education there.”

The entrepreneur said the government needs to ensure that the regulatory bodies are doing their job, stating that schools that are not meeting up with standards should be shut down.

“There are so many government school children roaming about the streets during school hours. Many don’t even go to school as they gallivant. There should be a close supervision of schools by the government authorities,” she advised.

The proprietress advised youths to ensure that whatever they decide to do, they do it well.

“People are watching, and it will count for you. Discover what you love doing and put your mind to it. Be the best and you will explore, be the master of one,” she concluded.

Angel James