Date: 2014-11-30

A foremost learning resource company, Learn Africa PLC, formerly Longman Nigeria PLC, is to offer automatic employment to the best performing three students in the June/July 2014 NECO examination.

The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the company, Mr Segun Oladipo disclosed this in Ilorin on Friday while  presenting the 2014 Learn Africa NECO Excellent Award to the best performing three students.

Three best performing students who were students of IQRA College, Ilorin, include Jeje Aishat who scored the 1st position, Oyerinde Aishat, 2nd position, while the 3rd position went to Adepoju Barakat.

The best performing students went home N40, 000, N30,000 and N20,000 cheques respectively.

Mr Lawal Taoheed of IQRA College was also presented with the best teacher award in recognition of his sterling contributions to the students’ success, while books were equally donated to the school.

Oladipo said the award was instituted in February 2012 by the Learn Africa Education Development Foundation, a corporate social responsibility arm of Learn Africa PLC to reward excellence.

He said the award was initiated to encourage strong commitment to learning, celebrate diligent scholarship and healthy rivalry among the students as well as appreciating the teachers’ hard work and dedication duties and schools for providing conducive atmosphere for effective teaching and learning.

He said this year’s award had taken place between 24 and 28 of November, 2014 in 13 award centres across the country.

The Learn Africa Managing Director said “as you are aware, Learn Africa PLC, has a rich heritage of excellence in book publishing and marketing and current board, management and staff are committed to ensuring that we continue to set the pace in terms of product range, quality of offerings, customer engagement, market share, turnover and return on equity.

“We continue to update our textbook in order to align them with changes in the curriculum requirements, introduce new publications to meet new demand and come up with exciting initiatives to support teaching and learning”.

He said the company decided to offer the beneficiaries automatic employment when they graduated to reward their excellence performances.

Oladipo said the this year’s award programme was third edition out of five years agreement which the company had signed with the NECO, adding that the agreement would be renewed as a way of sustaining the gesture.

The Permanent Secretary in the state Ministry of Education and Human Capital Development, Alhaji Lamidi Alabi said the award programme would not only complement the government efforts in the education sector, but also encourage hard working and excellence among the students.

Represented by the Deputy Director Curriculum in the ministry, Mrs Comfort Biala, the Permanent Secretary who advised the beneficiaries not to rest on their oars, urged the company to sustain the programme.

Speaking on behalf of IQRA College, the Principal of the school, Mr. Sanni Kazeem appreciated the company for the recognition and dedicated the awards to the IQRA community.
The beneficiaries of the awards and their parents who were full of praises to Learn Africa over the gesture, thanked IQRA College for providing conducive learning environment for the students which they attributed to the best performances recorded during the examination.