Page 10 - Grundtvig International Secondary School Yearbook 2019

FOREWORD
QUINTESSENCE
The most perfect or typical example of a quality or class
I smiled when I saw that our Class of 2019 have chosen The
Quintessentials to describe themselves, and as the theme of their yearbook.
This, of course, led me to ask myself:

What (would I say) is the quintessential quality of the Class of 2019, the
sixteenth set of students graduating from our school?

A lazy way to answer this question would be to refer to their academic
performance. Afterall, the Class of 2019 achieved the highest JAMB
UTME score in the School's history: 330 (while the national highest was
347). The Class of 2019 achieved the highest US College Board Scholastic
Aptitude Test (SAT) score in the School's history: 1420 (98th percentile);
the Class of 2019 is the first set in the School's history to be offered a
whopping yearly scholarship of $69,000 (N25m) into a US Ivy League
university, Dartmouth College; the Class of 2019 represented the School at
the nationals of the Interswitch SPAK Science Competition. I could go on
and on. But I do not think that the defining quality of the Class of 2019 lies
in their academic performance, no matter how brilliant.

The Class of 2019 has also been quite generous in advising the school, in
contributing to shape outcomes and the direction of the school. For
example, when they learnt that they were going to be the first set to start off
the School's Summer Academic Programme for SS2s going to SS3, they
had forwarded to the School some suggestions for consideration. Many of their suggestions were adopted and
helped to create a more conducive and successful holiday study environment. And just last month, we were
challenged by this same Class: Is the School not old enough now to invite some successful alumni to come and
deliver the graduation lecture? We are now working towards having an alumnus as speaker at next year's
graduation ceremony. This is the 21st Century; the age of autocracy is behind us. Any school that wishes to
continually advance must always listen and hold itself accountable to its students. Importantly, the school would
thereby be demonstrating to students that true leadership always listens and holds itself accountable to the led!
Such demonstration is much more effective than delivering lectures on leadership.

What I find most striking about the Class of 2019 lies in their expressed determination to graduate intact, without
losing any member of their class to expulsion from school. As we all know, the final year in secondary school is
usually the most challenging, also in terms of student behaviour. Final year students generally tend to suddenly
become too impatient to graduate; they begin to find the school rules and regulations that they have lived by all
along too constricting, and some even begin to feel above the rules and regulations of the school. This has often
resulted in final year students being expelled from school and not graduating with their class.

With their expressed determination to graduate intact, to be their brothers' and sisters' keepers, the Class of 2019
thereby displayed an innate awareness of the truth in the saying that not a single leaf turns yellow and falls from a
tree without the silent connivance of all the other leaves. They thereby affirm the profundity of the South African
concept of Ubuntu: “I am, because we are”. They thereby recognise that interdependence stands higher than
independence!

And it is in such Solomonic wisdom and maturity, whether consciously or unconsciously displayed, that I find
what I'll say is the quintessence of the Class of 2019.

May that wisdom granted to Solomon continue to guide you to continue to make the right choices as you step
ahead into higher education.

Dr Kachi A. Ozumba
Executive Director

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