Lady Modupe Olaiya — the Quintessence of Service.

Born in Ibadan to the family of Mr. & Mrs. Dada, Lady Modupe Olaiya attended Baptist Girls High School, Osogbo, before earning a Secretarial Diploma from the Treasury Secretarial Training School, Ibadan, in 1959.

She served as Confidential Secretary at the Ministry of Administration & Research (Ibadan), then Dunlop Nigeria Industries (Lagos), and joined Mobil Producing Nigeria as Senior Executive Secretary in 1964 — a post she held for fourteen years.

A restless calling for independence led her to Beaney's Bakery and Food Technology Institute in Folkstone, England, where she earned a Diploma in Food Technology (1978–79). She trained further at FIIRO, Oshodi, then founded and ran Shadel Bakery and Shadel Restaurant from 1979 to 1986.

Another vision took hold — to give Nigerian children a beginning worthy of their potential. She closed the bakery in 1986 and travelled to St. Nicholas Montessori Training School in Knightsbridge, London, earning a Montessori Diploma for teaching children from birth to five (1986–87). She returned to the London Montessori Centre and earned a second diploma for ages five to twelve (1988–89).

With those qualifications she established Shadel Montessori Nursery/Primary School in 1988, and Shadel International High School in 1994.

She married the late Sir Benjamin Olaiya of Ijesha-Isu, Ekiti State; their marriage is blessed with five children. She authored three reading books with Longman Nigeria (1989), the six-volume Lantern Read Easy with Phonetic Series (Literamid, 2000), and two more titles with West African Publishing (2004) — all rooted in the Montessori method.

Beyond the classroom, she has served as National Women Mobilization Director under Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, contested for the House of Representatives in Ikeja Central, and remained a committed philanthropist. Today she is celebrated as an educator, an author, and the mother of every Shadel child.