The Partner Schools Global Network (PSGN) by the British Council in Nigeria is a community of schools that offer a UK curriculum leading to exams such as the O-level, IGCSE and A level, administered in cooperation with the British Council.
The aim of the network is to offer high-quality products and services that support leaders, teachers, learners and parents. PSGN Nigeria also supports the Ministry of Education with reform and improvement programmes.
For teachers, this support includes a Quality Assurance self-assessment tool and an excellent suite of in-service teacher-training workshops for both primary and secondary teachers. John-Mark Adams Etoh, decided to join the network in 2015 after his appointment as Examinations Officer at Centagon International School, this singular decision transformed the quality of learning in the school and he claims to have become “a world-class international education professional by continuous interaction with the British Council”, as a result.
To mark 75 years in Nigeria, the British Council put out a call to all past participants of its programmes, as part of its “Thanks To You” Campaign, to submit their stories about the cascading impact of participation across its varied offerings including exams. John-Mark sent in his story, which demonstrates how the guidance and learning he received has helped improve the examination outcomes for hundreds of students in his school, setting them up for life.
As the Cambridge Teacher Support Coordinator of his school, John-Mark was given access by the British Council, to the Cambridge School Support Hub and the Cambridge Online Support Sites for Cambridge Primary and Cambridge Lower Secondary. Teachers were able to access free online professional development training, full access to all the Cambridge resources to support their delivery of Cambridge programmes as well as Cambridge face-to-face professional development training programmes in Lagos and Abuja; helping them to improve their professional practice. According to John-Mark “this helped to greatly improve the academic performance of our students. The exams services delivered by the British Council have continued to provide timely and reliable data via student results from Cambridge, which we use to provide feedback to our students and help them improve in their academic pursuit”.
John-Mark was given guidance and instruction about the registration and administration of different examinations from Cambridge International. He learnt how to register students and prepare them for the IELTS through the free online training course. He was, therefore, able to successfully upgrade the Primary Section of the school to a Registered Cambridge Primary School through step-by-step guidance from the School Exams Unit of the British Council.
For school leaders, PSGN offers leadership training as well as networking opportunities. The leadership of Centagon International School also benefitted from the guidance of the British Council’s School Exams Unit, participating in the Cambridge Schools Conferences in South Africa (in 2016) and in the United Kingdom (in 2018).
John-Mark Adams Etoh added that he has continued to develop his leadership capabilities. According to him, “I have also learnt a lot about collaboration, event planning and management from the two programmes we jointly organised in our school with the British Council in 2018 and 2019. There are many more opportunities we stand to benefit from by our continuous engagement and collaboration with the British Council”.