Hon Abiodun Akinlade At The Nigerian Astronauts Seminar will be in space in 2015. - Dec 2008

The Centre for Space Science and Technology Education says the nation's quest to have its astronauts in space will not linger as the centre has set a target of 2015 to launch Nigerian astronauts into the orbit. Speaking to journalists at the end of a one-day workshop for students of 50 secondary schools in Ogun West in Owode-Yewa on Wednesday, the Executive Director, CSSTE, Prof. Oluwagbemiga Jegede, said the agency had concluded arrangements to set up a space science museum at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife in 2009. Jegede, who said the centre, based in OAU, is an arm of the National Space Research and Development Agency, added that the NASRDA was already collaborating with the Federal Ministry of Education to strengthen the science curricular in secondary schools. This initiative, he said, was bound to encourage the involvement of more young minds in space science. Without explaining the advances made toward achieving the ambitious goal of six years, he said the museum would serve as a rendezvous for students, researchers and academics. "The museum is meant to fire up the creative instinct of the space scientists, which will enable them to manufacture products that can shore up the profile of Nigeria in the area of space science," he said. He explained that no fewer than 400 schools had registered for the Youths Inspirational Competition, an initiative of the CSSTE. At the workshop, the Principal-General of Yewa Zone, Mrs. Ebunoluwa Olurin, lauded the mission of the facilitator of the workshop and promoter of GEM's International School, Mr. Abiodun Akinlade, a member of the House Representatives. The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Mrs. Iyabo Odulate, noted that the state government had taken funding of education beyond rhetorics since 2003. Represented by a Deputy Director, Mr. Olawale Opaleye, Odulate said the state met the UNESCO standard of 26 per cent budgetary provision for education in the outgoing year. Jegede explained that the centre had seen the advantage in the bottom-top approach to developing space science, saying the teachers were key in the strategy. "Teachers are being taken seriously in this strategy unlike the top-bottom method which gives instructions to the lower rung of the stakeholders within the system," he said. He added that the centre had been involved in capacity-building for the English-speaking African countries as students from 15 Anglophone nations had been trained at the postgraduate level in the centre in OAU. www.zoominfo.com/CachedPage/?archive_id=0&page_id=-1192671687&page_url=//messageboard.biafranigeriaworld.com/ultimatebb.cgi/ubb/get_topic/f/24/t/000027/p/1.html&page_last_updated=2013-05-25T07:45:17&firstName=Abiodun&lastName=Akinlade