You and your team just came back from the UN; can you tell exactly what your experience was?
The experience actually takes me back to the selection tests which held in the month of May 2012 and we made it open as usual to the private schools and then a number of public schools so we can have a mix of kids for 2013. So we got three from the public schools that excelled in our tests and after that we invited them to a one-week training that held in the month of August last year. They further proved themselves as worthy ambassadors to represent this country. Just like the kids from private schools, they began preparations in December and did a lot of research works on topics they were assigned.
Our organisation, Future Trust Initiative for Capacity Building (FTI) continued to guide them all the way. Visa issued occupied us in February and in March we went. There was excitement of winter but the students later settled down to the task before them. The conference started on March 6, after the opening ceremonies.
For the first time since 2002 our organisation was recognised with an award, and this is tied to the performance of one of the students we took from a public school last year from Rivers State, from Oginakpa Community Comprehensive Secondary School.
That was the first time our organisation had a student from a public school on the delegation. I would like to go back to what happened last year. Due to the performance of the Nigerian, some of the directors in the committees were coming to ask me how we prepared our students. This made me to even pull the student to a corner to find out what really happened in his committee session, because we were running round organising things.
He told me that a lot of his peers commended his speeches and some even scripted congratulatory notes to him. I got him to retrieve the notes and preserve them because they are heavier than academic certificates, especially if your fellow contestants admit your superiority and in a written form. He is going to show them to his grandchildren one day. I told him he has to show them to his grandchildren as time goes.
So, it was for that performance that Nigeria and my organisation (FTI) were given an award on the opening ceremony of this year’s edition. Also, we won an increase in the slots to Nigeria, now to maximum of 36, from initial six to 10 and now, this. So, there is this continuous improvement on how we prepare them and the children also are bending down to really do research and be ready for the conference ahead of them.
So would you say the screening exercise is genuine, I mean on the side of public schools?
Yes, it is. We exposed to them to the very same test, written and oral
interview with IGNATIUS CHUKWU
