The Minister of State for Police Affairs, Hajiya Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, has said there is no success without a successor to pass on knowledge on Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics, STEAM to pupils of the Police Primary School in Abuja.
Sulaiman-Ibrahim spoke during an inspection of the STEAM programme put together by her office and the Police Officers Wives Association, POWA, in partnership with the Peace Institute led by Professor Hauwa Ibrahim held at the Police Secondary School in Abuja.
The minister, according to a statement signed by the Deputy Director of Information and Public Relations in the ministry, Bolaji Kazeem, stated that the programme was meant to encourage and promote children to be serious about their education, increase their imagination, creativity, and improve on their can-do attitude as well as thinking big toward the future.
She said: “The future of learning revolves around STEAM, and adding art to it was to carry along the children who are not science-oriented. We look forward to expanding the training to accommodate more students as we are continuing with the training of teachers to transfer the skills and impact more on the students.”
According to her, the summer lesson message was to demonstrate the ongoing Renewed Hope Police Reforms within the primary and secondary schools in the Police ecosystem as a strong commitment of the government to drive excellence in the police institutions and make them a choice school in two years.
Also speaking, the Mandate Secretary of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Mrs Adebayo Benjamins-Laniyi disclosed that the FCT just concluded the STEAM programme in four wards of the city namely Kagini, Karu, Kwasah, and Karamajiji, adding that 250 children were involved in each ward including disabled and vulnerable children.
“We have more girl-children on this programme than boys and ensure that the knowledge is transferred to our indigent teachers,” she stressed.
The Peace Institute team from the University of Rome led by Prof Hauwa Ibrahim, a visiting lecturer from Harvard University stated that 80 percent of products used for the experiment in the Art, Science, and Technology classes were gotten from the trash in a bid to encourage them to turn trash into treasurable things.
She said: “The students have been inspired through the experiments they perform in the classes. The children are amazing and the programme has impacted 1500 children and hope to do more.
“Nobody can do it alone; we all have to pinch in a little bit of something. If we can encourage everybody to be together and add a little bit of something, Nigeria has more talent than you can ever imagine.”
Minister stresses importance of STEAM programme for Police basic schools