A Rejoinder
The ultimate, voluntary close down of Ausphine School in Kugbo, Abuja, in December 2024, was the culmination of a process and series of events that officially started on July 26, 2024 when the Proprietors convened a PTA meeting to announce their intention to close down the school.
Subsequently, other meetings were held to discuss options that later proved unviable to prevent the closure, which was eventually carried out without violating the Guidelines issued by the Department of Quality Assurance, Education Secretariat, FCT and with uncommon respect and regard for the pupils, parents and staff of the school.
Apart from the meetings where the action was discussed, the management of the school disseminated information to the parents, especially those who were absent at the meetings, through the School’s WhatsApp platform, wherein most of the reasons for the decision were again provided. Most importantly, the proprietors’ promise, which was motivated by their deep empathy with parents, to provide financial assistance to parents to smoothen their transition to other schools, and request for parents’ bank details, were also provided in the WhatsApp messages.
The financial assistance was a refund of part of first term fees for school uniforms for pupils that joined the school in September 2024, and a proportion of the cost of books for all pupils of the school. Incidentally, before the widely publicised story, 70.4% of the pupils had benefitted and no parent complained about the mode of closure. Moreover, all the staff have been paid terminal benefits and, along with some parents, benefitted from the disposal of the school’s assets, including computer systems, printers, furniture items, etc. However, when the story was disseminated in the press, the author deliberately omitted all the details of the close down that were contained in the messages.
The story of the closure was brought to the public domain by Barr. Titus Terfa Agundu, the Chairman of the PTA, who often spearheaded resistance to school fees increase.
Barr Titus Terfa Agundu was the ONLY complainant and so-called “parents” that purportedly are stranded and confused by the closure of Ausphine School.
The closure of Ausphine School was due to its inability to generate enough income to cover its expenses over the eight years it operated, resulting in the proprietors’ reliance on their personal resources to keep the school going. The reason for this was that the fees charged for the very high standard of education it imparted only grew from N20,000 in 2017 to N25,000/N30,000 in 2024, for Nursery/Primary school pupils of the school. School fees could not grow and the little we charged could not be collected promptly or completely because:
1) many parents resisted increases and would withdraw their children completely if they considered fees unduly high,
2) many parents paid fees in multiple installments, months after school resumption,
3) many parents owe fees, which were carried forward from term to term.
Throughout the eight years we ran the school, I, the Proprietress never earned any salary; I didn’t collect the full cost of fueling my private car I used to run the school’s business; we didn’t pay rent on our private building we used for the school; we didn’t pay my husband for the air-conditioned bus he bought for the school’s use; we didn’t repay most of the loans my husband gave to the school to pay salaries and other costs, or pay for the various equipment he bought and maintained for the school; and, finally, we NEVER took any profit from the school because there never was any. Everything we did in Ausphine School was a labour of love, service and charity to humanity, which we do not regret and, if we have the opportunity or resources, we could do again.
I wish to commend the officials of the Department of Quality Assurance in the Education Secretariat of the FCT, who not only gave us quality supervision but went way beyond the call of duty to encourage us, guide us step-by-step, and nurture us over the years. Unfortunately, however, the high educational standard we took to Kugbo was way ahead of its time in the environment; this is why we could not strive there. Nevertheless, it was our pleasure to have made some impact in the lives of our pupils and we enjoin them to carry throughout their lives the motto of the school and continue to “Be the Light of the World”.
This is a summary of the true story of Ausphine School closure. I will publish the full story in a subsequent release.
Thank you.
J. E. Omokhuale (Mrs)
Proprietress
