Hamid Ayodeji
UBA Foundation, the corporate social responsibility arm of the United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, has commenced the 2019 edition of its annual National Essay Competition in Nigeria with a call for entries.
Now in its ninth year, the essay competition, targeted at senior secondary school students in Nigeria is organised annually, as part of UBA Foundation’s education initiative which is aimed at promoting the reading culture and encouraging healthy and intellectual competition amongst secondary school students in Nigeria and across Africa.
Speaking at a media launch on the call for entry held in Lagos yesterday, the Chief Executive Officer, UBA Foundation, Mrs. Bola Atta, said the essay competition provides an opportunity for students in secondary schools across the country to put in their entries and to win prizes in the form of educational grants to study in any university of their choice on the African continent.
Beginning from last year, the prize money increased significantly as UBA Foundation emphasises that education remains one of the foundation’s key initiatives.
The first prize for the UBA National Essay Competition is a N2 million educational grant, while the second and third prizes are N1.5 million and N1million educational grants respectively.
Speaking to the students and participants at the event, Bola Atta said, “To us at the Foundation, this is our drive to improve the quality of education across the continent. It is also our way of giving back to the society.”
“The competition is a key aspect of our investment drive in human capital, as we seek to improve knowledge base, allow students to express themselves and write creatively.
“We will continue to sustain the initiative because education is very important to UBA and we are more than committed to providing the necessary support for students in Nigeria and across the African continent,” she noted.
“We are driven by the mantra to do well and do good and we will not relent in our efforts to touch lives through our various projects, and initiatives,” Bola Atta told the students.
Explaining the modalities for the competition, she stated that entries received from students for the competition would be reviewed by a distinguished panel of judges made up of professors from reputable Nigerian Universities, who would then shortlist 12 best essays for further assessment.
Following this, a second round of the competition would involve the 12 finalists who would write a second supervised essay from which three best essays will be selected as the overall winners from the 12 finalists emerged from the first round of the competition.
Atta explained that the choice of essay for this year’s competition was one that helps promote creative and analytical thinking in students and helps them to be problem solvers. This year, the topic is “What do you think the government should do to control fraud in Nigeria?”
