NAPSS wants law on child rights protection reviewed

By Sunday Ani

President of the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS), Lagos State chapter, Mr. Olawale Amusa has called on the Federal Government to enforce the law guiding child rights protection in the country so as to guarantee their right to qualitative education.

This call was made at the maiden edition of the Association’s online Science Competitions 2021, tagged, “Grooming indigenous technologists through science, technology, engineering and mathematics.”

Mr. Amusa, while emphasizing that the proper application of science and technology could solve most of the nagging problems bedeviling the country at present, stressed that adequate priority must be paid to research and development in order to bring about speedy development in the country.

He lamented that private school owners were seriously facing many challenges ranging from multiple taxation to dues paid by the schools to the government and lack of access to loans, adding that with the Federal Government’s recent directive to banks to give loans to small and medium scale enterprises, the issue of inadequate funding would be resolved.

He also noted that part of the association’s aims was to bring back innovativeness to the consciousness of the people, especially in secondary schools. “And we have decided that we are going to reward any participant who can come up with an invention that can be produced in large quantities. Any society with little or no science or research-based study to help proffer solutions to the problems at hand spells doom for itself. I, therefore, want all hands to be on deck so that the country can regain its lost glory among the comity of nations,” he stated.

In his comment, the Country Director, Sterling Heights Children Foundation, Adeniyan Adekunle pointed lack of political will by the government to fund research institutes as well as low patronage to sponsor science and technologies in schools by the private sector as some of the major impediments to the development of science and research in Nigeria.

He decried the government’s poor handling of research institutes, which has actually made a good number of them to go moribund; even as he noted that the research institutes were the bedrock of development of any nation.

Adekunle lamented that science and innovations have not been adequately used to address some of the challenges currently facing Nigeria. He said: “Look at the way the health sector is being handled. Many of our good hands have left the country in search of a greener pasture in other parts of the world. The story is not any different in the energy sector.”