Femi Folaranmi, Yenagoa
The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), has empowered 540 science secondary school students in the North East of Nigeria with training on their future career path.
The science students selected from 90 schools in three states of Adamawa, Gombe and Bauchi, were given life changing career talks to direct their minds to potentials in the oil and gas sector.
The theme for this year, being the 2nd edition of the science career talks for Senior Secondary I and II was: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics: Pathway to Nigerian content development and industrialisation, and held between Monday, February 24th and Thursday, February 27th, 2020 in the three state capitals of Yola, Gombe and Bauchi.
Speaking during the session at Zaranda hotels in Bauchi, the Executive Secretary, Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, (NCDMB), Engr. Simbi Wabote, represented by Mr. Maurice Iwhiwhu, Manager, Capacity Building in the board, said the programme was initiated as part of the mandate of NCDMB to fill the technical gaps in the oil and gas operations in Nigeria.
Engr. Wabote, said the career talks was a specific programme to “catch them young” and set up a process to produce more qualified Nigerian personnel for the oil industry to consolidate the gains recorded so far by the present board to progressively reduce the number of expatriates in the sector.
He said the board would continue to initiate programmes that will promote Nigerian content and that the human resources in the country remained a great asset to the nation, hence the need to focus on development of young scientist, technologists and engineers from secondary school level.
Engr. Wabote, thanked facilitators of the programme for exposing the young ones to the opportunities and prospects in the oil and gas industry.
One of the facilitators for Osk Leverages and Vie Logistique, Mr. Bashama Yussuf, said the science career talks in the Northeast was very timely because of recent success of crude oil exploration in the north and that the training would prepare the people to participate actively in the oil and gas operations.
At Gombe, the Deputy Director in charge of Science at the State Ministry of Education, Mr. Danalfa Umar Lakudos, expressed the appreciation of the government to NCDMB for bringing such a life changing training to the children and urged the board to extend to more schools and students in Gombe state.
In Bauchi, the Deputy Director, Science, Technology and Vocational Education, Mr. Stephen Bontali, said the impact of the career talks could be easily felt by the smiles on the faces of the students and enthusiasm displayed during the session that exposed them to history of oil exploration and potentials in the sector.
The students who were presented with different NCDMB branded educational sourvenirs including branded T-shirts, school bags, exercise books and jotters were made to compete for the branded 6 laptops in each of the three states.