By Magnus Emuji
BENIN-CITY/Nigeria: Delta State Governor and Vice Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa has said that effective partnership with the private sector is essential to ensure that sustainable development permeates every sector in the country.
The Governor stated this in Benin City, Edo State on the occasion of the NEP/SEPLAT PEARLS Quiz Competition for Secondary School Students in Delta and Edo State.
Senator Okowa, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary in Delta Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education, Mr. Augustine Oghoro said that it gladdened his heart that the competition was organized to stimulate the intellectual capacities of students at the secondary school level.
He noted that the initiative was a good example of how the private sector could identify with the host communities where they operated.
He said that the competition would make a positive impact on the students in several ways, adding that it would encourage them to take their studies seriously.
Senator Okowa also said that such competition would enable both the winners and losers to improve their performances in future challenges.
The Governor further stated that the competition would prepare the students to engage in healthy competition with their peers and others in the wider society in pursuit of an intellectually based scholarship scheme.
While saying that the competition had brought students from Delta and Edo States to square up in a friendly atmosphere, Senator Okowa opined that it had also provided a platform for them to chart new friendships as well as deepen the bond of unity and love among people of the two states.
He said that there was always a reward for genuine effort at achieving worthy goals in life, stressing the need for the schools the students were representing to intensify their training aimed at ensuring that the students brought laurels both to the schools, the students themselves, and their parents.
Senator Okowa said that the competition would go a long way in reassuring Nigerians that the standard of education in the country was still healthy, adding that it would also restore the confidence of parents and Nigerians in general in the education sector.
The Governor, however, called on other private bodies to emulate the gesture of NEP/SEPLAT for the overall benefit of the society, especially host communities.
