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All hail Corona students’ feat in global contest

By Kehinde Olatunji and Chinonso Ihekire
12 December 2018   |   4:11 am
The feat of the duo of Ikenna Uruakpa and Anna Adobamen of the Corona Secondary School, Agbara, Lagos, emerging the joint second-highest scorers...

CEO, Corona Schools’ Trust Council, Mrs. Adeyoyin Adesina; Principal, Corona Secondary Schools, Agbara, Mrs. Chinedum Oluwadamilola; 2nd best students in 2018 SAT I result in the Universe, Master Ikenna Uruakpa and Miss. Anna Adobamen; and Chairman, Corona Secondary School Board, Mr. Niyi Yusuf; at Corona Secondary School Annual Speech and Prize-Giving Day for 2017/2018 academic year held in Agbara, Lagos

The feat of the duo of Ikenna Uruakpa and Anna Adobamen of the Corona Secondary School, Agbara, Lagos, emerging the joint second-highest scorers of the 2018 Standardized Aptitude Tests (SAT) worldwide has continued to draw commendations.

Also, stretching the school’s list of recent feats is another student, Ibukun Oduntan, who was also celebrated for being second highest in the last unified tertiary matriculation examinations (UTME).

Uruakpa and Adobamen obtained top grades in all the subjects they registered, which translates to scoring above 90 marks out of 100 in all the subjects.

Oduntan, on the other hand, reached an outstanding score of 344 out of 400 in the UTME exams, just 10 marks lesser than Benue-based Moses Ape, who scored overall highest.

Expressing their joy, Uruakpa and Adobamen both encouraged other students to focus on hard work and commitment in trying to attain academic excellence.

Uruakpa said, “I want to thank my teachers, my parents and my peers. If it were by my efforts alone, I wouldn’t be here at all. I am so happy to be this celebrated.

“I’ll only advise every other students to work hard and put in more efforts in whatsoever they find difficulty in doing, and with enough practice, they will definitely become perfect in it”.

Adobamen said that she believed her success would motivate other students towards similar feats.
She said, “I feel really excited and happy about being one of the best in the world at this level. I owe all thanks to God almighty, the school in general, our ever-supportive teachers and my parents. I appreciate the fact that the school went extra miles to get external teachers to come help us prepare for the SSCE examination; it was really awesome to learn from top professionals you can ever find in different academic fields of Nigeria.

“I believe with the mile stone I achieved in my academic pursuit, other students could be encouraged by these by putting in more efforts to get the best results, even one better than mine”.

Reacting to their victories, the school’s principal, Mrs Chinedum Oluwadamilola, said that the school is committed to providing all-round education for its students, citing it as a factor for their academic achievements.
She said, “We say in corona that there is a star in every child. Children have different abilities, different attitudes, and we give them the opportunity to excel, to nurture and discover those abilities.
“We are talking about performing arts, we are talking about visual arts, we are talking about dance drama, we are talking about sports, we are talking about academics, we are talking about community service and so on. There are many avenues and the students have the opportunities to thrive in different things and find what they are good at.”

The stars continue to shine with corona secondary school as two of her students recently emerged among the top five in the Nigerian stock exchange essay competition.

Speaking on the theme for the day; “Exploring Creative Excellence”, the Guest Speaker, Managing Director of First City Monument Bank (FCMB), Mr. Adam Nuru, said, “Every time I come to this school, I feel butterflies in my tommy, and I still get them now several years after. I am not sure I am the right person to speak about excellence because haven heard all the things said about the achievements of the school, I would say excellence only is born here. This is where you have it. And every year I come I see more and more progress being made, and I feel that I must pause to say a very big thank you to the council and faculty of the school, they have made parents of wards in this school a very proud one and full of respect, a big thank you to them.

“The theme of today’s speech bothers around excellence which is born here, and because it’s about the children, my focus is on them.

What is excellence? For me, it is really when you becoming good at something, and it could be anything. You are said to have excelled when you become best in what you do. We all have our callings and peculiar areas of interest where we use our strength. So just tell yourself that ‘I want to be the best in what I do’.  You don’t achieve excellence by just being you; it’s by beating the person that is in you, and even doing better, and better, and better.  It’s about achieving a goal; it’s all about winning, and about taking part and commitment in becoming better at something.

Now how do you achieve excellence? First of all you have to be determined. You have to be determined to lead that great force to excel. You have to be committed to that course. And then you have to keep on practicing and practicing until you make it better and better.

Failure; how do you reconcile failure with success or excellence? If you don’t try, you don’t fail. Do you think the light bulb was developed on the first day of try? Sometimes you fail, but never forget your goal, and keep trying until you get it right. If you don’t fail, you may never learn the best way to achieve your goals. So failure is something that would happen, but we must keep on trying harder and harder, and doing better and better every day.

“I have a banking background and I will give you firsthand information as regards that field. In the bank, there are certain jobs that people do, which today are been done by computers. One is account reconciliation. It used to take seven days or one week to do that before manually, but today, it’s been done within one second using technology. So the staffs who are trained in that aspect and don’t have any other skills, what other jobs can they do now that technology have taken over? So, as the environment begins to change, you also should move with it, as regards what are the requirements of the future.

“I will end my speech by reading a quote from an anonymous writer about excellence. He said, “Excellence is not a skill, it is by attitude”. It is the attitude that you put into what you do, that would determine if you will excel in it or not. Imbibe the right attitude.”

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