FG Moves to Improve Science Education

[Richard Akindele]

Director General of the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI), Professor Olusegun Adewoye, has said Nigeria-UNESCO primary science workshop became necessary, to tackle the systematic degradation of schools, particularly widespread apathy and fear towards science and technology subjects.

Adewoye said this at the opening ceremony of the North-east Zonal primary science workshop, which opened at the College of Education, Azare in Bauchi State.

Represented by Dr Christian Nwajagu, Adewoye said President Olusegun Obasanjo has directed that the agency should go back to the grassroots, as far as the development of science and technology education was concern.

He said Obasanjo commissioned UNESCO to come up with a project targetted at training primary school teachers, using the Primary Science Kits (PSK0) developed by NASENI, for simplifying the study of science to the pupils, which is capable of performing 40 scientific experiments.

NASENI facilitated the workshop by providing PSK, scientists and engineers who would teach participants at the workshop.

This action, Adewoye said, was in conformity with the agency's statutory mandate to establish and nurture an appropriate and dynamic science and engineering infrastructure.

He said the initiative would achieve and sustain industrialisation through the development of relevant process, capital goods and equipment necessary for job creation, national economic well-being and progress.

While declaring the workshop open, Bauchi State Commissioner of Higher Education, Dr Garba Ibrahim, said science was an indispensable tool in the increasingly globalised world, if a country was desirous of keeping with global trend.

He said the state House of Assembly would not waiver in its constitutional function of enhancing the living conditions of the citizenry through provision of bills and laws that would positively impact on their lives, adding that o"ur main objective as representatives of our people is to represent them well."

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