Presec Emerged Winners Of 2017 UBA National Essay Competition

Jason Emmanuel Kuuku Asante Ghansah, a form two student of the LegonPresbytarian Boys’ Secondary School has been adjudged the overall winner of the 2017 edition of the United Bank of Africa’s (UBA’s) National Essay Competition (NEC).

Emmanuel, who is currently reading Business took home a trophy, a certificate and US$5000 educational grant.

The 1^strunner-up, AppiahMaameAnokyewahAntwiEkua of Wesley Girl’s Secondary High School received a plague, certificate and US$3500 whiles the 2nd runner-up, YasmeenQuartey also took home a plague, certificate and US$2000.

The cash prize serves as an educational grant for the winners to study in any African university of their choice.

12 finalists were selected from seven different secondary schools across the country out of which three were selected as those with the best script.

Each of the 12 finalists was given a UBA branded Laptop as a token for the bold step they took and to encourage them and others to participate in the next which is yet to be launched.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of UBA Ghana, Mrs. AbiolaBawuahsaid her outfit is fully committed to national event adding that it remains their priority to continue to contribution their quota to the society and nation at large.

“Today, we have identified the 12^th winner since the inception of the competition four years ago. Already, the UBA Foundation was taking care of nine students at the tertiary level and we are happy to announce that from now on they will be 12,” she stated.

MrsBawuahcongratulated all the 12 finalists for taking a bold step and urgeall senior high students out there to look out for this year’s competition and take part.

“To our stakeholders, the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service, your support to this cognitive competition has been enormous and we hope that the relationship will continue.” MrsBawuah concluded.

The Managing Director of UBA Foundation, Mrs. Bola Atta indicated that $100,000 has been invested in this competition adding that they still have a long way to go to ensure that they play a pivotal role in the secondary education system in Ghana.

“We are passionate about this. What drives us is to see the leaders of tomorrow taking a cognitive challenge like this. This is the only year that took us more than the designated period to complete the marking of the scripts. This tells you the number of entries we received this year and how competitive it was,” she intimated.

The Director for Secondary Education, Dr. Mrs. Angela TenaMensah, said the UBA Essay Competition is one of the most inspiring projects for the Ghana Education Service.

She highlighted strong points of the UBA Foundation National Essay Competition, such as allowing every student to exhibit their cognitive skills and potentials while developing a positive work ethic with problem solving and critical thinking skills.

MrsTenaMensah indicated that the idea of using the essay to elicit information from the young ones is indirectly asking these students to contribute to the national fight against galamsey.

“Our hope is that the fantastic ideas from the essays would be gathered and presented to those who matter in the fight against galamsey,”MrsTenaMensah posited.

She added that her outfitappreciates this endeavour to promote literacy, expression and creativity among young people, greatly and above all, the grant that is given them for their tertiary education.

UBA’s National Essay Competition is a Corporate Social Responsibility initiative of UBA (Ghana) Limited as a way of supporting the educational sector in Ghana. Launched in 2014 in Ghana, the competition provides a competitive platform to develop the intellectual and writing abilities of Senior High School students across Africa.

This is a build-up on UBA’s annual READ AFRICA PROJECT; which involves the distribution of literature books authored by African writers to a number of second cycle institutions across the country.