25 YEARS AND STILL ON: HOMAT GROUP OF SCHOOLS IMPACT IKORODU COMMUNITY

In Nigeria today, there are individuals who are investing and using education as a tool to produce the ‘seed’ of a nation that will go on to grow and become leaders of tomorrow who can become a social change agent of the society.

Although, some of these future leaders, their parent may be so poor that they cannot afford education for their wards/ children, but for parent of Ikorodu and its environs, they can be grateful for one man, Mr AMUSA MOHAMMED . who for over two decades have used HOMAT GROUP OF SCHOOLS to better the life and people of Ikorodu community.

HOMAT COMPREHENSIVE COLLEGE was established on 15th September,1997 as a co-educational private school to serve residents of Igbogbo community and it environ. The Proprietor Mr Amusa Mohammed, who is a seasoned and practical Educationist with many years of experience at various  came out and decided to respond positively to the needs of the people, making education affordable and provide scholarship to indigent brilliant student so they can achieve their education ambition.

Mr. Taiwo Daramola is the principal of HOMAT COMPREHENSIVE COLLEG, and also the Head of Administrator HOMAT GROUP of schools, EDUCARE NEWS crew caught up with Principal Daramola in his office, and he gave us the historic background of HOMAT, their objectives, the impact they have made so far, and how they are setting out to achieve their objectives for the future.

In an exhilarating interview session with the HOMAT principal, he revealed the answers to these questions, and other issues revolving around HOMAT.

“The school has been in existence for 26 years now, establish in September 1995, the school has remained the school to beat in all ramifications. Be it academics, sports or morals.

We have our own personal landed property, not rented apartment, we have the Headquater, HOMAT Private school (primary and secondary) Igbogo Ikorodu, HOMAT COLLEGE owutu (primary and secondary), HOMAT Unique College Odogunyon (primary and secondary), HOMAT Academy Idioroko (primary and secondary) HOMAT school of basic studies (NABTEB, Tutorials, computer-based centre).”

The lively Daramola, reiterated that HOMAT was established on a framework of morals, academic excellence, and discipline.

“The morals of the children, and academic excellence, we do not compromise in all of these, we are able to achieve this standard from the outset when recruiting our staffs, both (teaching and non-teaching), we employ base on Academic and Professional qualification, and their experience are important, about 98 per cent of our teachers have NCE and qualification certification, it is vital for us to put the children in quality hands, and its part of our key towards achieving academic excellence.

Motto of the school is EXCELLENCE in LEARNING and CHARACTER, its our driving force because it instills morals in the children. Morals of integrity, honesty, discipline etc.

We have inclusive teaching, because our mission is to provide a reputable and broad-based education and standard comparable to any part of the world. We try as much to ensure that even when our students travel out of the shores of Nigeria, they would conveniently be at the same pedestal with their contemporaries abroad.

STUDENT FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF GLOBAL ENTERPRENEURSHIP (SAGE)

“We have SAGE (Students for the  Advancement of Global Entrepreneurship)) this SAGE comprises of top schools in the country, and we have being in partner for more than 15 years, we represented Nigeria in the USA, and we clinched the gold medal, we also won a gold medal in the U.K, about 3 years ago, we where in Dubai and we came second, recently the same competition was held here in Nigeria (Abeokuta), and we were the over all third best school, we were the only school that represented (SAGE) Lagos state.

By November, HOMAT will be representing that organization under the umbrella of SAGE in Dubai. That is to tell you in terms of Academic HOMAT is the school to ‘be and beat’.”

SPORTS

Also in sports, some of our students (current and past) are excelling both in National and International sporting competitions, recently during the MALTINA GAMES for sport student. one of our students won gold in the high jump competition. At HOMAT we have an all-inclusive education without compromise.

OUR FACILITIES

HOMAT is an Information Technology driven school, today, we are in a digital world, we have a well stock computer laboratory, ICT centre for JAMB, where we take our students for practical, we also have an e-library for research, science laboratories, and Basic Tech workshop with ‘state of the art’ furniture in our classrooms.

HOMAT has produced notable students, I can boldly say there is no top organization in Nigeria that you won’t find at least one student that was produced by HOMAT, whether in the banking industry, telecommunication, or even oil and gas, most of them are excelling at home and abroad.

HOMAT has remain a household name, and our parents, the community and everybody know this as a fact, it is our product (student) that advertise for us.

THE CHAIRMAN AND HIS SUPPORT

“All these successes, achievement over the years can be attributed to the immense support from the founder and chairman of HOMAT group of schools, Alhaji Amusa Mohammed, who is currently the president of National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS), he has given the management, the teachers and students the platform to operate seamlessly. He gives us the freedom to be creative and render support to outstanding students by giving out scholarship.

We are grateful to the chairman and the proprietress his wife, Alhaja S.A. Amusa they are wonderful. Their love and welfare for the staff has made most of the staff to stay here for long, some of them have been with us for over 25 years, we don’t promote religious or ethnic bias, everybody is giving a level playing ground.”

OUR CHALLENGES

“There is no system of this magnitude that wont face one challenge or the other, with all the group of schools we have, you will agree with me that definitely there should be a challenge, and one of the challenges is the issue of payment of school fees.

The fees we charge is not commiserate with the service we provide, our chairman is from a very humble background, he is passionate about the indigent students, especially people around where the school is located, our fees is very moderate, our chairman is using the school to contribute to the society. Though with the little fees we charge most parents find it to pay, that’s one of the challenges we are facing.

Another challenge is the government high levies impose on schools, apart from the QUALITY ASSURANCE CONTROL, other government revenue agencies come with different charges, which is too much for us as a school.

Though we are in good relationship with the community, we fulfill our part to the community by carrying out our Social Responsibility as a school, but because of all these we are doing, sometimes there is envy, which militate against the pace we would have love to go with our CSR (Community Social Responsibility) project.”

HOMAT IN FUTURE

“We always have a set objective every year, we have standardized all aspect of our education programmes. We hope to establish our own tertiary institution very soon. We also want to establish HOMAT in all part of lagos because many people are clamouring to be part of the HOMAT family, but we can’t get as many of them in  because of the distance  barrier, so we are working hard to ensure that HOMAT is accessible in every part of lagos.”

Homat Group of Schools was founded on the 25th september, 1995 by a seasoned and cerebral administrator, AMUSA MOHAMMED, who is the current President of the National Association of Propreitors of Private Schools (Lagos Chapter)