Mrs. Olufolake Adeniyi is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of MEL Educational Services an Australia-based international agent for universities in Queensland, Australia, New Zealand and other countries.
She is an experienced teacher and trainer member of the Nigeria Society of Engineers (NSE), a registered teacher and education consultant in Brisbane, Australia.
In this interview, she avowed that the lingering industrial actions by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) were forcing most Nigerian students to seek alternative education abroad. Adeniyi x-rays the challenges facing the Nigerian educational system and suggests success tips for students wishing to study abroad, especially in Australia. Mrs Olufolake Adeniyi What was your background like before you left the shores of Nigeria for Australia in search of greener pastures? I trained as an electrical engineer at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN). I am a registered teacher with the board of teacher registration in Queensland and I have the opportunity of teaching Mathematics, Science and Physics.
Currently, I am an education consultant and founder of Mel Educational Services, which started 11 years ago. I was born in Lagos, Nigeria and had my primary education at Tunwase Primary School, Ikeja. I had my secondary education at Government College, Agege and thereafter studied Electrical Engineering at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) from where I graduated in 1990.
Being an Electrical Engineer in the 1990s, were there a lot of female engineers and what was your experience like? As an Electrical Engineer in my class in 1990, there were only 24 students and I was the only female in that class. After I graduated, I had the opportunity of being posted for my National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) to WAPCO Cement I didn’t have the opportunity to work with the WAPCO Factory and instead, I had to educate the Human Resources manager because she didn’t know much about the Portland electrical repairs, which is a subsidiary of WAPCO and I had the opportunity of working there, and I was the only female engineering staff.
Portland electrical repairs are into rewinding of electric motors and transformers, so I worked there for a while. After my NYSC programme, I got a job as a Sales Representative with a one-man business. When I left the company, I got another job with John Holt Plc also as a Sales Engineer. And it was at that point that I realised it will be difficult for me to get a job as a qualified engineer, because all the job offers I was getting, being a female engineer had to do with sales of electrical equipment. So, I resigned from John Holt after getting married and I decided to do something on my own. Five years later, I wanted to go back to the workforce, so I got a job with Avery Nigeria Limited.
At that time, the company just got a franchise with Videojet and they were into a date coding machine that is an inkjet printer that writes the expiry date on most products. So, it had a contract with all the coca-cola factories in Nigeria. So, it was at that point I had the opportunity of working, and my job entailed the installation of the equipment, servicing, maintaining and repairs, and also training. It was at that point I realised I had a lot of interest in training, so I worked there for a while. The pay wasn’t too good, at that time I was earning N4, 200 monthly.
At that point, I decided that as an engineer married with two kids earning N4, 200, I resigned from the job. And after that, I just started making applications after which I secured a job with ETCO Nigeria limited, and it was a good thing I resigned because my salary with ETCO was N44, 000 monthly. So, I moved from N4, 200 to N44, 000 per month. And it was from ETCO Nigeria Limited that I applied for skilled migration and thereafter I travelled to Australia with my family.
In 15 years you have experienced some career change and you stayed longest as an educational consultant, what motivates you? To start with I will say it was the passion because as I said earlier, I realised when I was working with Avery I had the passion to teach and train people, and when my family and I migrated to Australia, I studied education and I realised I enjoy working with young people plus all those skills I have had in engineering in all the places I have worked as a personal assistant. I also realised I could bring all the skills together to help myself as an education consultant and I decided to start my own business. And it just didn’t happen like that, I never thought of starting a business, but it was when people came to me and was asking me questions about how to study in Australia, I now realised there was an opportunity for me to turn the enquiry and the passion I had into a business and that has always been the driving force, the passion, the interest and the skills I have. Although, even with that I had to take some courses to be a qualified counsellor, to be ISES certified and I had to take other courses just to become a certified agent for Australia and New Zealand.
You are the founder of Mel Educational Services, can you tell us how and when it all started? Mel Educational Services actually started in 2008, because then I was still teaching in Australia and at one of the colleges I was teaching at, being an international college, I wanted to use the opportunity to recruit African students for them. So, when I travelled to Nigeria in 2008, I organised an information session at the Airport Hotel, Ikeja and a number of people came and attended because people were interested in studying in Australia and that is how we started. So, when I went back to Australia at the end of the holidays in 2008, I decided to make applications to some Australian universities so I could assist them with the recruitment of students from Nigeria and ever since then I have been holding information sessions in recruiting students for universities, colleges and schools.
Since you started Mel Education Services, how many visas have you been able to process for Nigerians and other Africans? I would say over 100 visas, but what is really important is not the number of visas but the visa rating. What is more important is the number of visa refusals we have not had. It is not the number of visas we get because if you make an application for 100 visas and you get 10, that is just a 10 per cent rating. What I can say at the moment is that in the last five years we have had a 100 per cent rating and that means in the last five years we have not had any visa refusals.
Do you have a branch or affiliate in any country where students can continue their education? No, we don’t but we are looking at affiliation with some colleges soon, but already what we have in place is that we have a number of partners where students can study. In comparison to other country’s tertiary education systems, what can you say about Nigeria? The tertiary institutions abroad provide opportunities for students to have real-world experience, they experience what it is like working outside the classrooms. It is not just all theoretical studies but a lot of hands on experience and they have a lot of resources that can facilitate the learning of the students.
Compared to Nigeria, though I graduated from a tertiary institution in 1990, it’s been a while, but even with what I have seen in Nigeria, I noticed a lot of people and even institutions don’t have enough resources to allow students to get real-world experience. There is a lot of theoretical stuff they are learning and sometimes they don’t have the opportunity to have companies where they can do internships and learn on the job, and I think that would have been a great thing.
In summary, I would say there is a need for students to experience on-the-job internships. A number of Nigerians are not granted visas to Australia or New Zealand due to fraudulent documents, and a number of times people use fake work documents and falsified bank statements. They may have character issues maybe if they declare correctly or if they don’t get a police character report. However, to those anyone seeking admission, I advise them to do a lot of planning, and sign up with an authorised agent that works with a number of universities in this destination.
The next thing will be to plan for at least six months in advance wherever you want to study, have your bank statements ready, take the English test and get all documents ready because normally the visa application may take between four and eight weeks and that will give them enough time. When they get the services of their migration agents, they can then access their documents, certify them and prepare the application for them. Applications should also have a number of opportunities to make two or three applications in case the first one doesn’t work out and ensure that all their documents are legitimate.