The National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP) has commenced the zonal launching of the Technology Story Board (TSB) initiative in Katsina State.
The initiative, which began in the northwest zone, comprises Kano, Kaduna, Kebbi, Zamfara, Sokoto, Jigawa and Katsina states.While declaring the event open, Governor of Katsina State, Aminu Masari, said the technology storyboard initiative was a very vital teaching aid that could propel technology growth in the country and should be supported by all state governments, adding that the state was ready and willing to embrace any developmental initiative by the Federal Government through its agencies.

Masari, represented by the state Commissioner for Science Technology and Innovation, Rabe Nasir, said Nigeria had depended for so long on technologies coming from the western world, stressing that the TSB initiative will make teaching and learning of production processes easy and as such, stimulate the interests of the students on science courses.

However, a statement signed by NOTAP Public Relations Officer, Raymond Ogbu, yesterday in Abuja, said the governor added that what NOTAP was doing through the human capacity building was better than building roads, noting that Nigerians should be aware that we are fighting against some unseen forces in terms of technological development.He said that NOTAP had brought the good news that will definitely change the psyche of our children to begin to cherish science subjects.

Earlier in his address, Minister of State for Science and Technology, Mohammed Abdullahi, said that the TSB initiative was a step-by-step pictorial presentation of production processes of goods that would enable students understand the processes undergone from the raw material to the finished products.

He said the idea was for children in primary and secondary schools to go through these production processes on daily basis to develop the technology culture and at the same time grow an unflinching desire to study science courses.

Abdullahi, however, urged Ministries of Education at both state and local council levels to key into the initiatives and ensure that all the primary and secondary school students are exposed to the technology storyboard project to demystify science and technology at the earlier stage of their lives.

While presenting the origin of the project, the Director-General of NOTAP, Dr. DanAzumi Mohammed Ibrahim, said NOTAP was established to regulate the inflow of foreign technology and at the same time promote and encourage the development of indigenous technology.

He said that in carrying out its responsibilities, NOTAP realised that over 90 per cent of the technologies that powered the Nigerian economy were foreign and for a country that was desirous of becoming one of the top 20 economies in the world, the situation was not acceptable.