The managing director and chief executive officer of Engineering Automation Technology Limited (EATECH), Dr. Emmanuel Okon has made a case for collaborative approach to and improved funding of post-primary science colleges in Akwa Ibom State given the importance of science and technology to the growth and development of the contemporary society.
Okon made the appeal at a fundraising held recently in Uyo to resuscitate science infrastructure at St. Mary’s Science College Abak.
He stated that there was the need for collaboration between ex-students, the missions and government in the resuscitation of decayed infrastructure in secondary schools in the state.
The EATECH chief executive decried the rot in critical infrastructure at the state’s foremost science secondary school which was founded by the Catholic Church in 1953.
He said the failure by private and public sectors to partner and commit substantial funds to science and technology education at primary and post-primary levels amount to a deliberate decision to kill the state’s future given the role ICT plays in the growth and prosperity of modern world.
He said he and his wife, both alumni of the college, would bankroll the renovation and equipment of one of the abandoned science laboratories to international standard.
Okon said aside the science laboratories, funds would be required to rehabilitate the male, female hostels as well as the staff quarters to make them habitable.
“This school founded in 1953 has produced the best of science, technology and medical professionals achieving feats within the country and globally, particularly in the last 33 years. We must assist in restoring it to its lost glory.
“As a product of the school, I am deeply concerned about the current state of rot in infrastructure. I think we will require at least N200 million to fix things and get the school to operate at the shape, quality and pride it once held and I appeal to alumni and government to support this worthy cause so that by 2021 students sitting for their final exams would operate under conditions and ambience better than the current obsolete and rotten state,” he added.
In their separate remarks, speaker of the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly, Mr. Aniekan Bassey and the commissioner for information, Mr. Ini Ememobong, both alumni, pledged to partner with the newly inaugurated old students’ association to renovate the school.
For his part, Ememobong tasked all ex-students at home and in the diaspora to contribute to the ongoing efforts to rehabilitate the school bearing in mind that their successes in life would not have been possible without the foundation provided by the school.
In his speech, the longest-serving principal of the school, Mr. Christiansus Asuka, lauded the ex-students for the initiative to resuscitate infrastructure in the school.
He appealed to the alumni in top government positions to ensure the best teachers are posted to the school.
Asuka, who also served as permanent secretary in the state ministry of education, also called for sustainable science education in Nigeria from the primary to the university level.
Aside providing the platform to raise funds for the renovation of the school and election of new executive officers, the fundraising also served as a reunion for the old students as some were meeting for the first time in many years after graduation.
