Bola Agunbiade is an educationist and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Avail International Consults (AICL), a recruitment agency based in Lagos. In this interview with KUNLE AKINRINADE, she explained why many Nigerians are eager to study abroad and how AICL provides free counselling services.
What does your agency do in terms of placements for Nigerians in universities abroad?
What we do at AICL Consults is to assist students and parents who want to send their wards to study abroad. We assist with the United Kingdom, Canada and United States. We also assist those who have very low budget, who can’t afford to pay for these, because to be honest it is quite expensive. We do Europe, Asia for those who have low budgets. You got to have a lot of millions to afford UK, US and Canada.
We assist them with the application processing, getting the admission, and information on choosing their courses because a lot of students come in, but they don’t even know the course they want to study; they have no result or, they are not really sure. So, we don’t just get admission and say: ‘Oh bring your result, we will give you computer science’, We actually look at the results and interview the students to know what they like to do, what they are good in, what they have been doing in their past, the clubs they belong to in their secondary school, were they in the debating and literary society, and all of those things.
Do you select courses and schools for them?
Though we pick courses for them, some of them already know the courses they want to study, for those ones, we just go ahead and pick schools for them. Now in picking schools, we have to be careful; because we have to be sure that it’s a school that fits their budgets. Some schools have high fees, some have medium, some have low, so we have to be sure, is their transportation and cost of living low? It’s not just getting them the admission; we look at the students, look at their parents, what they want and get them the admission.
There are so many other agencies out there, what makes yours stand out?
I emphasise students ‘ingenuity. Right now, universities are very jittery about taking international students who are from Nigeria. There is a high probability that the Canadian embassy or the US embassy will differ. So, we try as much as possible to verify documents.
There are other agencies that are out there for the money; they don’t bother with verification or documentation. They don’t bother to know what the students actually want. But we go the extra mile to make sure this is the subject or the course that the student will excel in; and I often make sure that the documentations are genuine. That is why a Nigerian student with genuine documentation even if it is something we considered not too good here, excel very well abroad. A 2.2 student here may be competing for distinction abroad because the learning environment is not the same, but it all starts from the genuineness of documents and certificates.
What are the basic requirements for prospective students?
Basically for undergraduates, they need five credits including Mathematics and English, for those who are not so good in English language; there is this opportunity to take an English test, International English Testing Exams (IELTS). Those born with extra talent and have done A Level are accepted directly unto the Year 1, so they don’t have to do the one-year foundation. We accept ND as well. They take those ones unto Year 1, or diploma from any recognised institution. For Masters, students must have 2:1 or 2:2. For those with 3rd Class, there is opportunity for them to do pre-masters bridge programme. This is a requirement that runs across most of the countries.
source: THE NATION
0 comments:
Post a Comment