Ondo wins best over-all female engineering student competition

A Senior Secondary School level one (SSS1) student of St Helen’s Unity Secondary School, Ondo, Ayomide Adeyeye, has emerged the overall winner at the just concluded Girls in Engineering, Mathematics and Science (GEMS) competition, among 33 finalists of Senior Secondary Schools from nine States of the Niger Delta held in Port Harcourt, River State.

To emerge the overall best, Adeyeye produced Ethanol from over-ripped pineapple as substitute to fuel in Nigeria economy.

She won a trophy, tablet computer, a gold plaque, N200,000.00 cash and N5 million scholarship for her five-year university education at N1 million per annum, while the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) would build a chemistry laboratory for her school at the cost of N10 million.

Another representative of the state, Esther Ademeta, an SS1 student of Federal Government Girls College, Akure (FGGC) won N500,000.00 cash award for being the only student that did her research on Mathematics, while Deborah Doghor, an SS2 student of FGGC, Akure, who was one of the best 10 students at the competition produced electricity from juice and fruit.

Out of the 10 students that represented region 1 which comprises Ondo, Edo and Delta States at the final competition in Port Harcourt, Ondo State produced eight representatives.

The competition which was organized by NDDC is to promote innovative, research and standard-based practices, which will encourage students, particularly girl students with interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics to thrive in the 21st-century global economy.

It is aimed at giving the girl child in the Niger Delta region a sense of pride, dignity and an opportunity to excel in Engineering, Science and Mathematics studies which hitherto were dominated by their male counterparts.

To get to the final stage, 2880 students from the 9 Niger Delta States were screened, out of which 1110 students were selected at the first stage, 270 students comprising 30 students per state were selected at the second stage.

At the state finals, 10 students were selected from each state out of the 270 students that participated in the screening, while 10 students were selected from each of the 3 regions into which the nine states were divided.

The state Commissioner for Education, Arch. Jide Adejuyigbe, who led the team to Port Harcourt commended the state Governor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko for his administration’s policy initiative that has transformed the state education sector to an enviable height and restored Ondo State to the front line position among other states in Nigeria where students in the state have been competing favourably with their peers anywhere in the world.