NYAGATARE - A visiting Japanese volunteer encouraged Rwandan students to be keen on science subjects.
Sawa Iwakuni, made the remarks, over the weekend, at Nyagatare Secondary School, where the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), conducted a number of experiments to mark the technology festival.

"This festival gives students the chance that they don’t have in their daily lessons of science. It also has the objective of encouraging students to explore their skills of creativity and inventions which are improved upon by gaining opportunities to use the five senses as much as possible,” she said.

During the ceremony, Iwakuni and other volunteers conducted various experiments including extraction of DNA and lighting diode using windmill, among others.

JICA country representative, Hiroyuki Kobayashi urged the students to continue carrying out experiments.

Fabien Habimana, the head of the Science and technology department in the Ministry of Education hailed Japanese volunteers for promoting science and technology in the country.

"Science and technology are among priorities of the Ministry of Education. We allocated laboratory materials to different schools of excellence to support the programme,” he said.

Richard Arinaitwe, a senior five student told the New Times that the festival was inspirational.
"We have gained a lot in the field of sciences from this festival,” he said.

Since 1987, JICA has dispatched volunteers to the country to work in different developmental areas like computer technology and agriculture.

Ends