•500 get tech skills, 200 varsity scholarship
From Magnus Eze, Enugu
Member of House of Representatives for Enugu East/Isi-Uzo Federal Constituency, Prof Paul Nnamchi has adopted education and skill acquisition as major means of tackling poverty in his area.
No fewer than 500 secondary school students in the constituency have benefitted from the Professor Paul Nnamchi Techhub and Youth Innovation (PPNTAYI). A team used the holiday period to train 350 students on the use computer set. Over 150 students were trained in the first edition which held in March and April this year.
The skills impacted on the students include computer appreciation, uses of Microsoft word, Excel, Internet, installation of computer system, among others.
Daily Sun gathered that when the holiday training ended last Saturday, 99 percent of the participants were able to solve mathematical equation using Microsoft Excel, type fast with their two fingers, create folders, access the internet with phones and laptops, as well as create and manage email addresses.
The federal legislator at the grand finale and certificate presentation to the participants at Ikem, Isi-Uzo LGA, applauded the parents who allowed their wards to participate in the one-month programme. He also praised the students who according to him, passed through the training and allowed the training to pass through them: “What prompted me into making the training available for our young ones was the experience I had while I was abroad, teaching in UK.
Some students from Nigeria came to do their Masters and they couldn’t use computers and one of the lecturers asked me if we don’t use computers in Nigeria schools and I told him that we do, but I knew that even some who study computer Science in Nigeria may actually have not used computers. So, I started this training in other to catch the students young.
“The training is to equip the children for tomorrow, for them to be better in hi-tech knowledge. I’m certain that we will produce future Bill Gates from this training. What the elderly ones couldn’t achieve, you now have the potential for such heights and that is the essence of this fundamental training.”
Coordinator of the programme, Daniel Igwe disclosed that the students now know all the technology used in generation of computer and network topology, adding that their performance during tests and examination proved the students acquired the desired knowledge: “350 students in Enugu East/Isi-Uzo Federal Constituency are now computer literate under the mentorship and sponsorship of Hon. Prof Paul Sunday Nnamchi. The same Nnamchi had awarded 200 students with federal government scholarship to study any course of their choice at any University in Nigeria.”