The Chairman’s Report – July 2024 – Britain-Nigeria Educational Trust

Before I review the Trust’s activities in the last 12 months, I would like briefly to comment on two of the most significant economic factors affecting Nigeria recently – the rapid deterioration of the international value of the Naira & the significant inflation which has touched all aspects of life in the country, most especially for the less well off.

I am not an economist, but they are undoubtedly linked and will continue to be until or unless the country becomes less dependent on imports in order to sustain a reasonable standard of life.

I mention this because of course it has a bearing on BNET’s existing projects and how we assess potential ones. On the one hand, as our funds are in Sterling, we can take advantage of the weakening Naira when we send funds to Nigeria. On the other hand, grant requests & estimates must often quickly be reviewed upwards as all costs increase. This is particularly true, for example, where we are paying school fees, but I am glad to report we appreciate the challenges facing schools we support and have been adjusting grants where necessary to reflect the reality of costs.

Our difficulty remains how to assess new requests. Our priorities remain to focus on teacher training projects and those we believe to have the maximum clear impact on the children involved. We are careful not to approve projects where we feel we will not have enough control over and/or knowledge of the personnel managing the requests. As we are a small organisation with limited ability to vet the many requests we receive, it does mean we are probably over-cautious when it comes to approving new proposals; however, in the end we feel it is better to spend less money carefully than more money without control, even though we recognise the increased need for outside assistance at all levels of public education in Nigeria.

Here are the details of the projects we have supported over the last 12 months:

(𝐢) 𝐍.𝐓.𝐈. 𝐊𝐀𝐃𝐔𝐍𝐀.

We continue to sponsor one serving teacher from each of the 36 States + Federal Capital Territory (FCT) doing their 3 year online NCE course. We sponsor their 2nd & 3rd year fees provided they pass the minimum in their exams each year as well as award a prize of N100,000 to the best student at the end of the course.

The prize is the Gary Clark prize named in honour and memory of our late Secretary. For follow up on this project, we are indebted to Professor Kabiru Isyasu who has devoted much of his so-called free time after retiring from Ado Bayero Kano to monitoring and handling our projects in the North.

Once the current NTI cohort graduate this year, we are planning to change our sponsorship from teachers taking the National Certificate of Education (NCE) course to those serving teachers actually teaching taking the online undergraduate degree course which we hope will strengthen their teaching skills even more. This is were we want to go when complete the current cohort.

(𝐢𝐢) 𝐈𝐁𝐑𝐀 𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐒𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐋 – 𝐌𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐀, 𝐁𝐎𝐑𝐍𝐎 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐄.

This year we agreed to pay for the supply of a new overhead water tank & solar driven submersible pump for the school borehole to a total value of N2.4m. With the continued lack of regular power supply and the high cost of diesel it had become impossible to justify use of a generator to pump water for the pupils.

(𝐢𝐢𝐢) 𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐋 𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 – 𝐋𝐀𝐆𝐎𝐒.

Members will recall we have been sponsoring this organisation based in the outskirts of Lagos for several years. They arrange after hours activities for local children combining fun & learning.

Their founder Ajoke Adeola attended our 2019 AGM and gave a wonderful review of how the organisation has grown over the last few years, thanks in part to our sponsorship. This year we again gave a grant of N5.6m to assist with operational expenses and to sponsor a spelling bee competition for the children and give them digital literacy training.

(𝐢𝐯) 𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐆𝐀𝐆𝐄 – 𝐒𝐔𝐏𝐏𝐋𝐘 𝐎𝐅 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐁𝐎𝐎𝐊𝐒.

In last year’s report I mentioned we were honoured to receive a donation of 11,800 reading books aimed at early secondary school level from Cengage, an offshoot of National Geographic Magazine.

These books have now been distributed to the schools that we work with and via various State Departments of Education to local public schools. Like any reading matter, they have been greatly appreciated by the teachers & children that received them and I want to thank again Professor Kabiru in the North & Greg Ojieh & Dele Fatayi-Williams in Lagos & the East for organising the distribution.

(𝐯) 𝐈𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐂𝐔𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐂𝐄𝐏𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋𝐒’ 𝐒𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐋 – 𝐔𝐌𝐔𝐓𝐔, 𝐃𝐄𝐋𝐓𝐀 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐄.

Members may recall we helped set up this school some years ago which we co-financed with the Catholic Bishopric of Warri. It has had a mixed history, partly due to financial restraints as well as security issues and the difficulty in attracting both boarding pupils and teachers.

It is now co-educational & we currently sponsor 10 local day children to attend for a total of N1.2m per term (3 terms in the year). The school has requested a major supporting grant for the coming year and I expect to report on that in next year’s report.

(𝐯𝐢) 𝐒𝐔𝐏𝐏𝐋𝐘 𝐎𝐅 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐀 & 𝐀𝐅𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐀 𝐉𝐈𝐆𝐒𝐀𝐖 𝐏𝐔𝐙𝐙𝐋𝐄𝐒.

This follows a popular initiative undertaken by the Trust pre Covid, we have again purchased 500 jigsaws (total £4000) – half of the countries in Africa & half of the States in Nigeria – and shipped them to Nigeria. These have been divided into 2 – half to be distributed from Lagos & half from Kano, donated to schools we already work with and have proved very popular – helping children to learn the names & whereabouts of the States of Nigeria and the countries of Africa.

(𝐯𝐢𝐢) 𝐃𝐀𝐈𝐋𝐘 𝐃𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐈 𝐒𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐋 – 𝐋𝐀𝐆𝐎𝐒.

This is another initiative & project in its second year, where we sponsor 15 children to attend this school where parents would otherwise not be able to afford the fees. The total cost this year will be N5.1m which will include provision of textbooks for the year going forward.

(𝐯𝐢𝐢𝐢) 𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐒𝐄𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐄 𝐒𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐋 – 𝐉𝐎𝐒.

This is the school run by the adopted daughter of our late Trustee, Professor Lalaje Bown.

The school has a large intake of children from the nearby military barracks and waives fees for many orphaned military children.

This year, although BNET does not normally support building projects, we have given a grant of N1.7m to assist in the renovation of a classroom block.

(𝐢𝐱) 𝐇𝐎𝐏𝐄 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐕𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐆𝐄 𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐃 𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 – 𝐊𝐀𝐃𝐔𝐍𝐀.

This is the Catholic organisation run by Sister Rita which we have supported for many years. In her Eighties, Sister Rita, an American lady, continues to live in Kaduna and run her Foundation that supports children’s education in rural communities of South Kaduna.

This year we donated N2m to help run her Peace Clubs which the Foundation organizes, taking village children on local trips outside their villages to meet other children from different communities.

(𝐱) 𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄 𝐁𝐔𝐈𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐈𝐍𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄 – 𝐀𝐁𝐔𝐉𝐀.

After a successful first year sponsoring 25 children in the programme, which helps educate children from some of the IDP camps around Abuja, we plan to continue to and expand our contribution. This is a privately run organization where children are helped from the IDP camps outside the normal schools which don’t really cater properly for the education of these children. We will be reviewing this project in the next month and, as I say, hopefully expanding it going forward.

None of these projects could have got off the ground without the tireless work of the Trust’s officers and the support of the Trustees and you, our Members.

I must give a special thank you to our Secretary Elizabeth Dudley and our Treasurer John Lee who single handedly (or is that double handedly) ensure the administration of the Trust is up to date and financially sound.

Above all, I thank again our Nigerian based Trustees, Engineer Greg Ojieh, Professor Kabiru Isyaku & Dele Fatayi-Williams who has just moved into a new house he has spent three years building, so is unable to be here this year. Without their experienced, expert input in so many areas, BNET would be a far less effective organisation.

Finally, I thank Frances Tarr our retired administrator for coming out for the day to assist us, and Karen Sussex who uploads items and runs our website and has agreed to help us with our membership with our Membership Secretary.

And, of course, I thank all of the members, those of you who are here and those of you who could not make it, for your continued support.

David Brandler, Chair of the Board of Trustees