Dr Idiat Adebule, the Deputy Governor of Lagos State, has urged pupils and students to embrace history to deepen their knowledge.
Adebule gave the advice at the grande finale of the Lagos State Current Affairs Quiz Competition introduced to broaden the knowledge of pupils and students on Friday in Lagos.
She noted that said that one year after the introduction of the competition, it was becoming bigger and more competitive as students had shown interest and excitement.
“You have done your teachers and your parents proud and we are proud of you all.
“This competition is different because its objective is to entrench history in our students.
“History teaches valuable lessons about human nature; it also helps people to abandon incorrect assumptions.
“History is an inexplicable subject which leads the past and the present. That is what history subject impacts in us and that is why Lagos State Government is very particular that we have history as a subject back in our curriculum.
“The competition is for the students themselves to be interested in history.”
The deputy governor said that the impact of the competition was already been felt as students had become have become increasingly conscious of current events around them.
“We are in the 21st century where information becomes critical in achieving success in any endeavour.
“Our students and teachers need to broaden their horizon via information and knowledge in science and technology, humanities, arts and crafts, politics, economy, sports and entertainment.
“We know that by learning history and paying attention to history, our past and present could be linked.”
Adebule, therefore, urged students to shun all vices such as rape, drug abuse, cultism, kidnapping, hooliganism, and alcoholism.
In her address, Mrs Adebunmi Adekanye, the Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Ministry of Education, said that the competition was meant to redirect the minds of the pupils and students towards keeping abreast with happenings in their immediate environment and the world at large.
Adekanye said that the competition would avail the students the opprtunity to develop a sense of history and the penchant to read wide and broaden their horizon.
She said the preliminaries of the 2018 competition wwere keenly contested from Zonal to district and state levels.
Adekanye said that the standard of the questions had also improved over and above what it was in 2017.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that two students, Precious Amike and Jeremiah Marcus of Angus Memorial Senior High School, Shomolu, Lagos, emerged winners of the 2018 edition of the competition.
The students scored 39 points to defeat Agogu Seide and Olorunda Emmanuel of Lagos State Senior Model College, Kankon, Badagary, who scored 31 points.
The contestants were asked questions on current affairs in four stages — Eko Akete, Lagos State, Nigeria and international.
In the Junior Secondary School category, Oluwatobi Benjamin and Abeebat Kolawole of Lagos State Model Junior College, Igbonla, Epe emerged winner while Daniel Akinkowo and Fiyinfoluwa Onifade of Government Junior Model College, Owotu, Ikorodu clinched the second position.
In the primary school category, Precious Taiwo and Chidera Uduma, pupils of Francis Nursery and Primary School, Kosofe, scored 56 points to emerged winners, defeating Gift Felix and Kereem Hammed of Ladi Lak, Nursery and Primary School, Apapa, who got 47 points. (NAN)