NNPC, Chevron, others donate labs to Kwara school
As part of its corporate social responsibility, Agbami Group - comprising of five major oil companies including Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Petrobras, Statoil, Famfa Oil, and Chevron has donated a multi million naira science laboratory complex to Comprehensive College, Isanlu Isin in Isin Local Government Area of Kwara State.
Speaking during the commissioning of the project in Isanlu Isin, a representative of one of the donors working with Star Deep Water Petroleum Company Limited, a subsidiary of Chevron, Mr. Michael Kabi, said the project was meant to improve science education in the state.
Kabi noted that the focus of the group was in areas of education, health and economic development, adding that their areas of intervention had not been limited to oil producing areas alone as the whole country was seen as a community.
“Because it’s a global brand, best practices are deployed. Isanlu Isin is not an oil producing area, but the group sees Nigeria as its corporate entity. The laboratory is not just a structure; it’s fully equipped in line with world standard.
“We have a 40-seater biology laboratory, 40-seater chemistry laboratory, 40-seater physics laboratory, fume chamber, the chemicals, standard furniture and borehole water for use of the laboratory and the community,” he said.
He also said that impact of the project on students in communities where they were earlier sited had been improvement in grades of science students since they see everything they are taught physically, adding that it was no longer the issue of alternative to practical.
The principal of the school, Mr. Abolarin Tunde, said the benefits of the science laboratory were immeasurable to the community and a blessing for the country in general.
The principal, who said that the school was already witnessing increase in student population with the building of the laboratories, added that more students would major in sciences within the next few years.
Abolarin, who called on other individuals and corporate bodies to intervene in the development of education in the area, said that such private interventions were capable of making impact on other communities in the country.
He appealed to the group of oil companies to assist in rehabilitating some of dilapidated structures in the school, build e-library, standard mathematics laboratory and health centre.