‘Spelling Bee’ contestants make improvement
Six out of sixty basic school children from public and private schools in the Upper East Region have been selected to take part in the final competition of the Spelling Bee contest, slated for February next year in Accra. The participating schools were selected from within the Bolgatanga Municipality.
The Spelling Bee Competition originated from the United States of America, and has been promoted across many countries in the world, as a means of perfecting the memory and spelling skills of children, as well as their day to day usage of English words.
Over the past five years, the Young Educators Foundation has been holding the Spelling Bee competition in the Upper East Region to select the best speller to represent the region, but unfortunately they performed poorly, because the concept and spelling techniques were new to many teachers and pupils.
Mr. Emmanuel Sekyi Afful, Chief Executive Officer of Write Right Consultancy Service, who moderated the competition, observed that the spellers in the Upper East Region put up a splendid performance this year. This, he said, was due to the fact that the teachers were learning the techniques and teaching their children how to apply them.
Mr. Tawfiq Moomen, MTN Territory Sales Controller in charge of the Upper East, said the Foundation adapted the vision of the Young Educators Foundation to improve the knowledge of future leaders through spelling and encouraging the right pronunciation of words, for which reason the MTN Foundation had supported the organisation of the annual Spelling Bee Competition across the country.
The Foundation has constructed a CHPS Centre in the Azuribisi Community, and refurbished the Zuarungu Health Centre. Some 20 children across the region were currently benefiting from a sponsorship package from the MTN Foundation.
He said the Foundation had been able to give all that to the communities because the support from its 11 million subscribers, which many people in the Upper East are part of.
The Upper East Regional Coordinator of Languages at the Ghana Education Service, Mr. Anaffo Tee Rashid, commended the coaches (teachers) for grooming the best spellers, and urged them to intensify their coaching for the children to bring laurels to the region.
Taking into account the rate at which the standard of education was falling in the country, Mr. Anafo called for a national debate on how to resolve the problem before it gets out of hand, adding that due to the fallen standard of education, the cutoff point to Senior High School for the 2012-2013 academic year was stretched to aggregate 40, to enable more BECE graduates get admission.
The six spellers who will be representing the Upper East Region are Akuure -Teng Fortune, Presby Primary School, Atigdiro Francisca, St. Clement Primary School, Dzudzor Perpetual Esinam, Straightway Educational Complex, Nyaba Gloria, Methodist Junior High School, and Sambilla Perpetual and Nafu Yin-Nonyya from the Fountain Gate Primary School in Bolgatanga. They took home MTN branded T-shirts and caps, Indomie products, and some exercise and reading books.
The programme is being sponsored by Indomie and the MTN Foundation Ghana.
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