The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development Sadiya Umar Farouq has unveiled a Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics STEM centre at the Federal Government College, Maiduguri.
At the North East Zonal flag-off ceremony of the STEM project, the Minister said that the Centre, which is one of the components of the National Social Investment Programme is a project strategically conceived to provide technical platforms that will aid modern teaching and learning on Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics to students in some carefully selected Federal and State-owned Science/Technical Secondary Schools Nationwide.
โTechnically, the project aims at providing e-Learning facilities through the establishment of a State-of-the-Art Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure and modern teaching content, to serve as a one-stop-shop environment for students in public Secondary Schools, to have access to digital and updated learning materials in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics while also developing their ICT skills including the use of the Internet for various purposes.
โSTEM project has two components, the set-up of the centres in carefully selected government owned secondary schools and the training of the teachers in the schools so selected. While STEM centers are established to give students of secondary school an opportunity to have practical experience in digital learning platforms, the training component focuses on building capacity of teachers in secondary schools to significantly enhance learning of STEM which is the foundation of digital economy. The programme is designed to equip and transform STEM teachers to deliver digital literacy through training, mentoring and provision of devices to aid teachingโ.
Minister Umar Farouq also charged the teachers and students to take optimum advantage of the facility.
โWe have just set up a centre where students can go in and learn about science, technology, Engineering and mathematics. We hope that the centre will be put to good use so that our children can benefit from this Centreโ.
A total of 218 of such schools located all over the 36 States and FCT are equipped with modern digital equipment in each center including 25 All-In-One-Desktop PC 24inch Screen Intel 2.8 GHz quad-core, 25 Desktop tables and Chairs, 1 Projector of 5000 lumens,
1 magnetic white board for learning,
1 WiFi Routers multi-SIM and 18 Elegoo Robotics sets.
The Minister toured the facility accompanied by the Minister of State for Education Mr Emeka Nwajiuba, Mrs Imam Suleiman-Ibrahim Director General of the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons, Director Humanitarian Affairs in the Ministry Alhaji Ali Grema, the State Focal Person Hajiya Aisha Waziri Umar and other dignitaries.
5 other similar centers are located in Borno state.
