By Diana Omueza
The Art of Living, a non-profit educational and humanitarian organisation in India, on Friday said that there was hope for every Nigerian student if given the right platform for education.
Mr Ankur Agarwal, the Lead Trainer, Youth and Students of the group in Nigeria, said this in Abuja at the close of the Knosks N100-A-Day Charity Secondary School Hackatorn programme.
The Hackatorn programme with the theme: Entrepreneurship and Tourism in Nigeria and Across Africa, challenging students to research on ancient and historic sites and their entrepreneurship prowess.
Agarwal said that visiting a school in Nigeria and in Africa for the first time had revealed that there were a lot of untrue and negative news about Nigeria and its educational system.
He said that the negative news needed to be corrected by the media.
“I am very inspired today; this is my first time visiting a school in Africa and in Nigeria.
“I feel that there is lots of hope for every student in Nigeria and this particular school stands for that hope.
“People talk negative that there is no education here, that nobody cares or helps anyone and that the world here is not a good place.
“But I want to say that they should come to Nigeria and see that there is hope.
“The next generation is coming up well, not just in academics, but in confidence, in artistic and creative knowledge and with so much potential in them,’’ he said.
Agarwal said that all that was needed was the right platform, adding that it was a collective responsibility to provide this platform for the Nigerian student to stand and shine.
He said that once the right platform was provided, the Nigerian students had every potential to excel globally and shine as their contemporaries in other countries.
Mr Kingsley Bangwell, the Co-founder of the Knosk N100-A-Day Charity Secondary School said he was impressed with the display of the creative prowess by the students.
in projecting their research on entrepreneurship and tourism in Nigeria and across Africa.
“Every term we do something called the Hackatorn, which is a way of ensuring that students are learning and are able to apply the knowledge into identifying and solving everyday living problems.
“This term, I am impressed with our students and what they have been able to create and demonstrate today as part of their study and research on entrepreneurship and tourism.
“They have been able to research, identify, create and bring to life some places in Nigeria and in other parts of Africa where they haven’t been to before.
“Thy also portray the businesses and opportunities that these sites and places have,” he said.
Bangwell said that the school introduced the hackatorn programme into its examination curriculum to ensure that the graduands of the school were not left behind in academics, arts, crafts, and other 21st century skills.
According to him, the students are grouped for every hackatorn programme, which helps to build team-spirit, partnership, participation, self-confidence, public speaking and collective efforts to achieving things.
“The programme also helps the girl child to identify her inner strength and break barriers limiting her, this is because girls are involved in every phase of the research and building work in each project.
“The belief that sciences are for boys while girls are meant for social sciences are not evident here.
“This is because the hackatorn is part of their exams and scores are given so the boys and girls work together here,” he said.
He said that the next term hackatorn programme would focus on government and governance, aging that students would be asked to find and solve problems relating to governance.
Highlights of the day was the group presentation of art and craft works designed after renowned sites like the Ooni of Ife’s Palace in Nigeria, ancient empires in Ghana, Gau, Shanghai amongst others.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that students dramatised some cultures of the researched historic sites, cash gifts and other prizes were rewarded to groups with most detailed and outstanding arts and crafts.
