The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) on Wednesday at the Nigerian Content Tower (NCT), Yenagoa, marked the close-out of the 2023 edition of its Science Quiz Competition for Secondary Schools in Bayelsa State, with prizes for institutions and their students that emerged overall best.
Organised in partnership with the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), the competition is designed to stimulate interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education among secondary school students and thus orientate them towards academic disciplines vital to oil and gas industry operations.
In an address at the occasion, the Executive Secretary of the NCDMB, Engr. Felix Omatsola Ogbe, noted that the yearly competition, now in its 7th year, has come of age, and that the performance of participating schools and students has improved appreciably. He commended the Quiz Master and the NTA as well for thoroughness in planning.
The NCDMB boss, who was represented by the General Manager, Corporate Communications and Zonal Coordination, Esueme Dan Kikile, Esq, said it was remarkable that female students participated in appreciable numbers and won prizes in the 2023 edition. He expressed his hope that the trend would continue, and that gender gaps would be minimized in the technical disciplines, and ultimately in the oil and gas industry manpower pool.
He pointed out that the NCDMB has packaged prizes of far greater value than ever witnessed at the previous edition of the competitions for schools and students. The gesture, he explained, was to signal the Board’s desire to put in more energies and resources toward the sustenance of STEM education, while expressing the need to get more schools to participate in future.
Belary School, Yenagoa, emerged overall best and received a life-size human skeleton system and a microscope for its laboratory, a giant photocopier/printer/scanner, and a trophy, among other items.
Two of its students received 2023 HP Laptops. First runner-up, Milkway Academy, Yenagoa, and its students received a similar set of items, while the second runner-up, Community Comprehensive Secondary School, Agbura, also in Yenagoa, and its students received similar prizes, but a smaller trophy.
In a brief remark, NCDMB’s Deputy Manager, Media and Publicity, Obinna Ezeobi, charged the schools, students, and organisers, to spread news about the science quiz competition to attract more public schools to participate. He said STEM education means a lot to the future of the country and that state governments should take interest in the project. “We want to see the Commissioner for Education, other functionaries, too, here at an event like this,” he declared.
In her own remarks, the General Manager, NTA Yenagoa, Ms Daoju Whyte, thanked the NCDMB Management for initiating and sustaining an educational programme of such profound importance and for finding the station a worthy partner. She pledged the preparedness of the NTA, Yenagoa, to give its full support to the growth of the yearly quiz competition.
