Enko Botho parents meet Enko Education founder CEO
Correspondent | Friday November 22, 2019 14:35
Pignot and partner, Cyrille Nkontchou founded Enko Education, Africa-wide network of international schools aimed at increasing access for Africa students to high-quality education and the best universities in the world in 2013.
The founders realised that while there are many scholarships available for Africans, there was inadequate preparation in African secondary schools for access to the best universities in the world.
They therefore decided to create a springboard for the continent’s students through access to higher education facilities.
Enko Education currently operates 14 international schools in eight African countries inclusive of Enko Botho. Enko Botho is a partnership between the international school and Botho University sister company, Botho Education.
“When we started, we realised that to increase access to universities and provide more opportunities to students of the continent to go and study at international universities it was important to have an internationally recognised International diploma. So we designed a model of school for the African continent tailor-made to support students all across secondary schools to access great higher education,” Pignot explained to the parents.
While African students have both the talent and the financial opportunities to study in the best universities in the world such as Harvard, MIT, Oxford, Sciences Po, the University of Cape Town and many others; enrolling is an arduous challenge and the admission processes are hard to decode according to Pignot. He further stated that National diplomas from Sub-Saharan African countries are not always understood or recognised by such universities and learners do not always receive the adequate preparation to enrol in such universities.
Pignot hailed the partnership with Botho education saying finding the right partner is key component to success. He stated that he was struck by Botho University vision, values, ethos and the quality of staff resonated as well as the university’s accomplishments in the last few years.
Enko Botho will welcome first students in January 2020 for Form 1 to Form 3, for a 6 year programme leading to IGCSE in Form 4 and then to IBDP in Form 5 & 6. Highly educated and experienced teachers have already been recruited and they introduced themselves to parents at the event. Though he was unable to attend open day, school principal had a reassuring video message for parents. Parents expressed their impression of the new school. Some loved the conducive infrastructure while others were impressed by the individualised learning environment and the internationally recognised qualifications as well as accommodative cultural exchange.