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By Godwin Chukwumaechi, Port Harcourt
The Board of the Education Champions League (ECL) has set aside a total prize money of N17.5 million in the maiden edition of its quiz competition among secondary schools in Rivers State.
The competition, christened the Education Champions League, ECL, which mainly targets encouraging reading habits among Nigerian secondary school students, will test contestants for traits developed through reading -comprehension, analytical skills, general knowledge, reading fluency, as well as oral and written expressions.
While the winner will cart away N10 million, the second and third positions will go home with N5 million and N2.5 million, amongst other championship trophies, prizes and institutional support.
The Board of the Education Champions League said that 25% of the prize for each position would be applied by ECL to procure books for the school; 25% would be made available to the school as institutional support and 50% would go to the students who comprise the school’s team, payable into an account nominated by the students’ parents.
Speaking on the competition at the weekend in Port Harcourt, chairman of the Board of ECL, Prof Eme Ekekwe, said the books slated for the 2024 Competition are Simon Kolawole’s ‘Fellow Nigerians, It’s All Politics’; Waziri Adio’s ‘The Arc Of The Possible’; and Bolaji Abdullah’s ‘On A Platter Of Gold’.
He spoke about the vision of the competition; “We want to begin to build the core of Nigerians who are interested in leadership and being good citizens. And we believe that if we begin at the secondary school level, it will help over a period of time for that crop of Nigerians to come up and take responsibility in the society and run those positions transparently, honestly and in a way that meet some of the things we think are lacking now, in terms of leadership in our country.
“And one specific tool we want to use and help that process is to get young people to begin to read. And when they read, they are aware of their environment and can understand the issues affecting them.
“I think there is a decline in reading culture. People do a lot of social media instead of reading. A book leads you through a process which is invaluable, whereas most of what is social media is not material for leadership or good citizenship.
“Whether you read online or hardcopy, please read.”
