The Acting Permanent Secretary in the Lagos State Ministry of Education, Mrs. Omobola Babs-Akinyeye has advised students of public and private secondary schools to take full advantage of the annual science vacation course for secondary school students in the state, which commenced on Monday at the 300 designated centres.

Babs-Akinyeye, who gave the advice during a working visit to some centres in Ojodu and Agege, said the intensive science vacation course was to channel the energies of students into productive ventures during the long holiday.

According to her, thousands of JSS1 – SS3 students were expected to participate in the voluntary programme and they would undergo tests at the end of the training to assess its impact as well as determine the level of knowledge acquired by the students.

She added that the Principals of the selected schools would act as Coordinators of the centres who would ensure that the Unified Scheme of Work and timetable provided by the Ministry of Education for all the centres were utilised to ensure uniformity.

Asked to assess the impact of the past tutorials, Babs-Akinyeye said the vacation course had helped to further arouse the interest of more students in sciences in secondary schools, thereby boosting the future self-dependence of the nation in the area of Science and Technology.

Speaking further, she said: “It has been noticed that our students have continued to do well in science and technology competitions both at home and abroad. Lagos State emerged the overall Best State at the 2014, 2015 and 2016 National Festival of Schools Science Fair and represented Nigeria at the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in the United States of America.”

Babs-Akinyeye promised that centres in all the six Education Districts in the state would be monitored by officials from the Ministry before the close of the programme on Friday August 25 to ensure that it met the desired objectives.

In response, the Principal of Government Senior College, Agege, Mrs. Omoyemi Odunuga-Nwafor said the vacation coaching would be of great advantage to the participants as it would enhance their ability to perform better in their examinations.