By Millicent Ifeanyichukwu
The Lagos State Ministry of Basic Education has said that the ongoing 2023 Special STEAM Vacation Course (SVC) is part of measures to guide students on the right path and keep track of their academics.
Mr Abayomi Abolaji, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, during an interactive session with newsmen in Lagos, emphasised the need for students to be grounded in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) Education.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the programme, organised for junior and secondary school students, is holding in 308 secondary schools across the six education districts.
It opened on July 31 and will end on Aug. 25.
Abolaji disclosed that the programme encourages academic pursuit and captures vocational skills acquisitions, adding, ‘we teach them to work with their hands not only with their brains’.
According to him, it is not a full-fledged learning session that has timetable structure which covers many subjects, but is purposely designed to channel students’ energy to productive activities, creativity and innovation, to make them learn, play and understand better.
“The long holiday is on, however, we have to acknowledge that these students are young minds, hence the need to guide them properly, because failure to do this, they’ll go the wrong path.
“For us, the right path is still academics, but not classroom activities alone; we infused Co-Curricular such as sports, games, skills acquisition and the idea is to make them learn something they can do with their hands.
“So, during this period, we have our science vacation programme going on, STEAM education, where the students are again taught on the need to be grounded in sciences; it’s not the full fledged learning session.
“We, therefore, urge parents to support us and encourage their children to take advantage of this free programme which runs between 9.a.m and 1.30 pm against the normal school schedule to keep them occupied.
“This will create additional learning advantage, have a positive impact on the general upbringing of these our children, giving us the government an enabling environment to remain committed in our mandate,” he added.
The Permanent Secretary noted that the state government, by extension, had vocational centres across that accommodate ‘Out of school age’, being run by the Ministry of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation (WAPA), Adult education programme under the Ministry of Tertiary Education.
On the sideline, he enjoined parents not to lose their guards, especially with the rainy season still on, warning that children should be discouraged from bathing or playing in the rain.
He said, ‘Rain is a conductor of thunder strike and we don’t want to lose any child through such act or misfortune because all these children in school or at home are still children of the government.
“We want to account for every child enrolled in our schools during the academic session and holidays, so that when they come back, we still want to have that same figure, even more because of forms of transfer.”
Abolaji urged parents to seize the opportunity of the holiday to strengthen family bonds, while imparting moral and cultural values in their children to curb indiscipline.
On the issue of transfer, the Permanent Secretary disclosed that the Ministry had commenced transfer exercise into JS2 and SS1 classes, for students who wished to change their schools due to relocation and other reasons.
He advised interested candidates to forward applications to the Office of the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Basic Education, and fulfil other requirements, in preparation for the 2023/2024 academic calendar.
Abolaji said that the exercise would end on Aug. 31. (NAN)
