The Students Representative Council (SRC) of the Madina Institute of Science and Technology (MIST) on Saturday held its maiden MIST SRC Excellence Awards.
At the event a number of students were presented with awards of plaques for their achievements in the school.
Amongst them was Ayishatu Salihu, the 2018-19 Women’s Commissioner of the SRC who won the Most Influential Female Student Award of 2020-2021.
Ayishatu Salihu expressed gratitude to the SRC and to all those who voted for her, especially her husband, his family and her family, friends and loved ones.
Ms Rahma Nkruma was adjudged the 2021 Queen and Miss MIST.
Alhaji Khuzaima Mohammed Osman who was one of the special guests presented the awards to the deserving students and urged them to be focused on what they set out to do and achieve.
“With dedication, determination and hard work, one would excel and be proud of those moments in his or her lifetime without any regret,” he said.
Alhaji Osman who is the Executive Director of the African Literary Club (ALIC) said it required students to be hard-working, and innovative with the spirit of entrepreneurship for them to come out with their own homegrown ideas and mechanisms to create self-sustaining businesses, and not waiting for the government to create jobs for them.
“What Government needs to be doing today is to revamp, revitalise and invest heavily into technical and vocational skills training with new models and techniques.
“The current model of TVET is not helping that much and still producing graduates who cannot invest or repair anything just as the mainstream universities do,” he said.
“I am a TVET student myself, I studied auto mechanic at EMIT but I could not repair anything on any car until I had a practical experience at the roadside fitting shop and the system is the same today at almost all the TVET institutions and colleges across the country without any exception,” he added.
“At African Literary Club (ALIC) we have designed some models fit and suitable for local engineering, mechanical and artisan students who would become repairers, inventors and self-sustainable businesses within a span of three years.”
“We would be engaging the government and other stakeholders in the education, business and entrepreneurship industry to fine-tune our concept and make it functional and practically as possible,” Alhaji Osman said.
By Salifu Abdul-Rahaman
