Our Lady & St Francis Catholic College (OSCCO) has won first position with the cash prize of #150,000 at the grand finale of “The Osun Girls Can Code” project in Osogbo, the Osun state capital on Monday.
The 6 months training programme organized by Matadors Leadership Institute in collaboration with U.S. Consulate General, Lagos was rounded up with a one-day tech summit- “Osun Tech Summit”.
According to the Executive Director of Matadors Leadership Institute, Adedayo Adeniyi, 300 girls have been trained over the past six months as well as 60 teachers in different areas of technology.
In his words, “it is to ensure that these girls have access to what we don’t have access to while growing up and that they help us drive the conversation of technology that we want to keep driving in Osun State.
“We invested this much because of the gap and we want to fill it with the people who we already equipped with the skills. If they are not equipped with the skills they cannot fill any gap.
“It is also better to invest in the younger generation than the older generation. Of course, it is going to be the marriage of both the old and the young but you stand to gain more in investing in the younger ones.
“It has been a wonderful project and eye-opener for us going through Osun, training 300 school girls. It is also a revelation of where we are as a people. There were many of them that were not able to use a computer system until training happened. So, for us it is to ensure that the future is secured. The future of education in the state is secured and of course, the conversation of development through ICT is secured.
“I told you that there were many of these children that were not able to use a computer but within five days of our training it was amazing what they could do with the system. Some of us still have phones that we don’t know the functionality so well, but these kids in five days they did some things that I was amazed.
“We trained 300 schoolgirls and 60 school teachers. The need to change the teachers is to serve as in-house mentors and keep engaging the school students.
Speaking on the reason the focus of the training is the girl child, Adeniyi said this is just a phase of the training adding that the focus on African girl child is because they have been deprived of many things.
He said “There are different stages and different projects one has to do. For now it is the girl child because in Africa the girl child has been deprived of so many opportunities.
“But why we decided to do Osun Tech Summit after Osun Girls Can Code is to be able to accommodate every gender. If you keep doing a gender-based developmental project, the gap will also be there.
“All the schools that participated were asked to do a project which is in line with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“It is not going to be one-off, we don’t plan to just let them go, we plan to still keep engaging them and making them better children and of course more productive in the society”.
Oasis Royal Academy came second winning #100,000 while the third position went to the duo of Crystalline Montessori Academy and Baptist Girls Grammar School shared the third position.
However, the Institute has decided to increase prize money for third position from #75,000 to #120,000 and divided the amount between the two schools.
Other selected schools that participated are Christ Apostolic Church Secondary School, Gbodofon; Divine Grace School, Ilesa; GOLF International School, Osogbo; School of Science, Ikirun; Fakunle Comprehensive High School, Osogbo; Shekinah College, Inisa; Laro Grammar School, Osogbo; among others.
Adeniyi subsequently appealed to governments at all level to collaborate with such developmental projects.
He added that while the Osun State Ministry of Education has been supportive, there has been no involvement with the Ministry of Science and Technology.
“Government must open its doors for well-meaning individuals to drive the conversation of change. There is a need for us to ensure that the government pay attention to this, if they do it is not so difficult for these students to focus attention in what they do.
“We use this opportunity to call on government and agencies to do what they need to do.
“The Osun State Ministry of Education has played a good role so far in the project. If we are going to set up 10 plots in schools we can’t do it without the government approval. We are working on the side to make sure the government see the need for this to happen because if they don’t see the need for it to happen we will just keep trying and trying and trying.
“Unfortunately, there is no involvement so far with the Osun State ministry of Science and Technology. Maybe sometimes in the future they will be but as at today we are only working with the ministry of education.”
