FEMI Odumabo (FNSE) is the General Manager Policy, Government and Public Affairs of Chevron Nigeria Limited. Although a seasoned engineer who worked his way up through the ranks, today, he is spokesman of the global oil giant in Nigeria.

In this interview with Vanguard's Yemie Adeoye and Success Uzokwe he explains the reason why the multinational oil company decided to go into a charitable venture with Discovery Channel and Coca-cola foundation to help build better youths for the future of Nigeria.

Discovery Channel Global Education Partnership (DCGEP) sounds like a laudable initiative, can you please tell us what informs the involvement of Chevron Corporation in the entire project?

The Discovery Channel Global Education Partnership was established about 11 years ago, and wanted Global Alliance partners of which Chevron is a strong one, it is just about three of us. Chevron involvement is truly going from the corporation level where the corporation is funding this project in Nigeria, what I will call sole funding and our corporation is working through Chevron Nigeria to bring this initiative to Nigerians.

We were also encouraged when Coca-Cola who is one of the three Global Alliance partners showed interest to do something in Nigeria so Chevron introduced the DCGEP to them.

How has Chevron Corporation been able to remain a leading player in spite of all the global economic challenges? Chevron is a global player but when we look at their partnership in issues of this nature we wonder how they are still able to partner with this kind of indigenous home grown project in spite of the fact that there are global issues that may be affecting the Corporation?

I am sure you know that Chevron is a very strong company, it's got very diversified portfolio, the portfolio include; Upstream oil and gas exploration and production, Downstream segment, we have very strong gas, activities in power in some areas of the world, we are in a lot of research and investment in other forms of technology that will bring energy to the people.

As the matter of fact, we pride ourselves to be recognized as the global energy company, most admired for its performance and partnership. So, because we have a diversity of portfolio we are very confident that we ride the storms, though the whole world is going through this financial turmoil.

In view of this what informed Chevron's interest in this particular project?

Chevron is a very worthy company, it's very strong in Corporate responsibility what we do is that we like to give back to the society; we like to help the society wherever we operate. Under our Corporate Responsibility, education is a very big pilot for the development in any society.

So we have taken education as a key pillar then, Health and other Social issues. So our involvement with this is that we feel that by helping the pupil and teacher to increase their learning ability and also getting the parents and the communities to be interested in what's going on in their children's school, we will be able to add to the quality of education that is coming out of Nigeria, particularly in the primary schools. We were very pleased about the transformational effects that we saw in some of the schools, we saw high level of concentration, increased enrollment, it will gladden your heart to know that in some schools 18 percent, 25 percent, increament in enrollment.SEED Educational Centre has recorded 33 percent and Badore primary School has recorded over 50 percent enrollment, bring in additional 232 pupils who otherwise would have been on the street.

So we are pleased with the out come in the first 5 months of what is a three year program, we are also seeing that the teachers are very enthusiastic about their profession they are deriving sense of pride and they are also testifying to the fact that this is a very complementary educational tool it is helping them to teach better, because there is visual assistance to what they want to teach, and the students also just don't want to miss school, so the issues of truancy and absenteeism according to the school have also gone down, so we are delighted with that.

In aware that there is this JV funding between NNPC and Chevron in terms of scholarship which Chevron has been doing, and I think the whole country has been benefitting from this, as it affects people from different places. Can you tell us if this partnership or investment is going to affect negatively, your scholarship program with the NNPC?

The DCGEP project that we are doing is been sole funded by Chevron Corporation in the U.S. So, it is sole cost initiative, it is not taking away money from the NNPC/Chevron Joint Venture Programs, so this is coming straight from our corporation and we are very grateful to our corporation Chairman and other top level executive of Chevron for thinking of investing sole funding in Nigeria, particularly in Education through the DCGEP. It is purely Chevron funding, it does not effect the JV budget.

Ok can you throw light on how many schools are involve in this DCGEP project?

The number of schools involve for now is just four from Chevron that we are sponsoring, but we are also delighted that our partner in this triangular relationship of DCGEP, Chevron and Coca-Cola are also sponsoring four schools at Ikoyi, while Chevron is sponsoring four less resourced schools in Lekki axis, where our offices are, and again this a pilot case, we want to see how it will do well in Nigeria, evaluate it, then decide how to go forward with it, whether to replicate it or multiply it. But as a pilot case of four schools from Chevron and four from Coca-cola for a total of eight and we are happy with the result because in 5 months out of three years still require that you gather some more later.

In the hall I overheard the representative of the governor make cases regarding the criteria for selection of this schools, so I was going to ask what your criteria was for selection because you just mentioned that in the Lekki axis you made your selection while your partner Coca-Cola made theirs at Ikoyi. Now what informed your criteria for selection especially around that axis when there are other less privilege areas in Lagos which you could have considered?

As you will notice the schools are close to the operations of the two companies where they have resources that is DCGEP and Chevron because we want to be able to monitor it properly since it's a pilot case and in other to qualify for sponsorship of the DCGEP there are four criteria that should be made 1.

Is there is need 2.The location has to be considered 3. There must be good leadership that can sustain it finally, there must be community commitment. So, the schools that we have chosen are the qualified and seriously under-resourced schools, if you have the privilege to visit some of these environment you will be stunned that they are under-resourced schools, they don't have good classrooms, good teachers, some don't even have much of any electricity.

So, we started with schools that are seriously under-resourced and this is where we are doing this pilot case, and depending on the outcome of the pilot case, although it has been going on for 11 years in 11 countries, but we are just starting here, so you cannot replicate or multiply something that you are yet to understand so that is the challenge we have.

Also the teachers have to be trained, we trained about 130 teachers and we are targeting about 5,000 pupils so in the pilot case we are expecting the 130 teachers and 5,000 pupils to affect about 15,000 stakeholders within the communities that have benefitted, so in this pilot case as we see the success, we learn the lessons, we will be able to take it to the next level and to other areas.

How has the response been regarding to this program?

It has been quite gratifying to notice and record that in 5 months very many schools are recording successes, I mentioned early that enrollment has gone up in many of the schools because they hear that there are video technology (TV) to help them understand things better.

Also it is very pleasing to the heart to hear the teachers saying that the are motivated because their jobs have been enhanced with the tool that they have been trained to use to help them teach this students better, instead of drawing on the ground outside the classroom, or on the blackboard to show the children a test tube they now have video coverage, educational materials that will show the students test tubes, space, the planet, the different animals complementary also is the fact that parents are now very interested in the education process and improvement of their children some of them are contributing money to run the generators that we donated so if there is no light anywhere there is power in the learning centers so that their children will continue to benefit from this new technology that is enhancing their learning.

The same way the schools are very happy that they have strive to provide service for humanity through the teaching of this children is complemented with the transformational educational tool that is coming in terms of this video technology. Over all it is quiet encouraging as we said it only 5 months out of three years we are still looking at it we are still gathering data.

Since the response has been good I believe other schools will want to benefit from it, so what is Chevron doing to be able to meet these demands?

DCGEP is done on the bases of requests. That is the community must request, since the pilot case is still infant we will continually take record of where people want us to take it to, we will encourage the state government e.g. the local government to demonstrate continued increasing interest in collaboration maybe by working with us to take over some of this schools. We are also encouraged in a school where teachers are trained on how to use the video otherwise it will be like watching ordinary TV and in those schools parents can add more learning centers.