–FSTC female student, selected to attend UN conference in New York
By Sam Otti
Miss Nwachukwu Oluchi, an SS 3 student of Federal Science and Technical College (FSTC), Yaba, Lagos, would be attending this year’s United Nations Conference in New York with a message for the world. The 15-year-old girl, emerged the 2017 TAFMUN Ambassador, and won a free ticket to the UN conference in New York.
Nwachukwu fought her way to the top in a competition that involved several public and private schools in Lagos, before she could be crowned the TAFMUN Ambassador. Her outstanding academic performance prompted an invitation from the Federal of Education, Abuja.
During the presentation of the 2016 outstanding performance awards to the students of the institute, the Minister of State for Education, Prof. Anthony Anwukah, urged the 104 Unity Colleges across the country to stand out as flagship institutions by thinking outside the box.
Anwukah said unity school must take a step further towards ICT by participating in international competitions, adding that ICT was the only way out going by the current economic challenges facing the country. “I will like to say that FSTC Yaba has distinguished itself in this regard as the flagship and only Unity College that is coming out with a lot of awards from participating in a lot of ICT competitions within the country”, he said.
In an exclusive interview with The Sun Education, Nwachukwu frowned at some demeaning roles allotted to women in the society, stressing that girls should be provided with the ladder to get to the peak of their career as doing so would produce the required intellectual resources and manpower for national development.
“I aspire to be a feminist,” she said. “I learn from different people. When I was three years old, I loved reading books written by women. I was motivated reading those books. I would rather read a book written by a female than the other way round.”
Nwachukwu’s outstanding performance also caught the attention of Nkechi Ogbodo, the founder of Kechie’s Project, New York based nonprofit organization that empowers, educate and mentor girls in Nigeria and in our local communities of New York City. She promised to link Nwachukwu with other schools in New York City to interact with their students when she arrives for the United Nations Conference in March next year.
The Principal, FSTC, Yaba, Rev. Chris Ugorji, said Nwachukwu’s sterling performance revealed the quality education in FSTC, Yaba, which remains the oldest unity college in the country. He promised that the school would continue to work on strategies to produce highflying students, promising that only the best is good enough at FSTC, Yaba.
Ugorji said the college registered for the Cisco NETRIDERS ICT AFRICA Competition organised for all institutions, including tertiary institutions, both public and private in Africa. According to him, the college emerged the overall best as well as clinched the second position consecutively in the country.
The college, he said, had also participated in programmes and competitions organised for institutions under Federal Ministry of Education as part of mandate to train the Nigerian child to acquire relevant knowledge and skills necessary for national development in the modern world.