The National Mathematical Centre (NMC) has called for funding support from the Federal Government and well-meaning Nigerians to enable it to successfully participate in the Science Olympiad competition.
The Science Olympiad competition is an annual international event focused on sciences for Senior Secondary School Students in Nigeria.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the centre, Prof. Stephen Onah, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Saturday that lack of funding could be a major challenge in getting the best out of the participants.
“Funding has been the greatest challenge, which is also responsible for the facilities that we are supposed to have in order to get our students to their optimum.
“As we speak, we have not been able to offset the amount of money we spent in some of our previous participation.
“We were going beyond our boundaries to source for funds seeing the kind of performances our students and our participants were putting up,’’ he stressed.
According to Onah, if Nigeria is to favourably and competitively participate at the international arena, there is need for injection of funds to the programme.
He, however, said that in spite of the scarcity of funds, Nigeria’s participants had been winning medals especially in the mathematics aspect of the competition.
The chief executive officer, therefore, called for increased participation from students, saying that there were numerous positives to be recorded from participating and winning the competition.
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“This Olympiad is a good competition for all young Nigerians to key into.
“And the benefits that you get when you do well are immeasurable.
“The Nigeria contingents that have been participating have been winning medals, especially in mathematics, and those who have won medals have gotten admission in highly-rated universities abroad,’’ he said.
The CEO added that at the end of each stage of the competition, awards would be presented to outstanding students at the state level and an award ceremony held in Abuja after the final stage.
He stressed that if more funds were made available to the centre, more awards would be given to participants to encourage others to participate in the competition. (NAN)