The Executive Secretary, National Senior Secondary Education Commission (NSSEC), Dr. Iyela Ajayi says the commission has created a platform for students in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to showcase their entrepreneurial skills.
Iyela was speaking at a two-day Annual National Science, Technology and Innovation Exhibition in Abuja on Tuesday.
He said that the exhibition was in line with the mandate of repositioning the commission.
“Let me inform you that, NSSEC has initiated some projects/programmes aimed at repositioning the sub-sector.
“Some of these programmes include but not limited to the following: Repealing of the NSSEC Act 2004 and Reenactment of the NSSEC Act 2023.
“Development of a National Policy on Senior Secondary Education in Nigeria, development of a National Minimum Standards for Senior Secondary Education in Nigeria.
“Renovation of Science Laboratories in Six Federal Unity Colleges (One in each geo-political zone) and development of NSSEC Strategic Plan 2023-2027, among others,” he said.
Also, the Head, Senior Secondary Education Department, NSSEC, Mohammed Salihu appealed to government and private agencies to adopt tye students projects and fine-tune them for commercialisation.
He said that this was necessary because students have been coming up with fantastic projects but ended up on the shelves.
He said this had discouraged students to be creative and innovative as there were no agencies to take up what had been created by them.
“We don’t want this exhibition to be in the usual way. We have so many agencies here, both government and private are here to see to what they can do to the projects and probably make it better for the society.
” In that way, even students that are not able to make it here will be able to come up with projects.
” We also intend to expose them to international exhibitions and fair where the project can be picked up and worked upon for the good of this country.
“To make it a bit interesting and for the students to be well encouraged, we have introduced a component of competition into it so that after the assessment we should be able to say that this project is outstanding and we can give prizes.
“For all of them to be here, we look at them as winners, we are only going to have first and second positions and others will take third position, it means nobody is going to leave here as a looser,” he said.
He, therefore, said that the commission would extend the competition to other states of the federation to allow for the discovery of other talents across the country.
An innovator, Chisom Gilbert from Government Girls Science Secondary School, Kuje, who invented a Veneerwood and study set made of wood and sequence, said the project had economic values and could be used by all households.
“The materials used in making the projects are easily accessible, the project are like home-made projects that can be used to decorate our offices, classrooms mad other areas of tye house.
” The Veneerwood are used to make pictures, and flower vase which is made up of Pepsi bottle is used for decoration.
“The project have economic value because it’s cheap and we can find the objects in our local markets as it is easy to get and highly durable,” she said.
