The corporate social responsibility arm of the United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, the UBA Foundation, has called for entries for the 2017
edition of its annual UBA Foundation National Essay Competition in Nigeria,
dangles N2,250,000 for grabs, reports ITRealms.
The essay contest, ITRealms gathered is for Senior Secondary
School (SSS) students organized as part of UBA Foundation’s education initiative
to promote a reading culture and encourage healthy as well as intellectual
competition amongst secondary school students in Nigeria and across Africa.
Speaking Tuesday at the bank’s headquarters in Lagos, the
Chief Executive Officer of UBA Foundation, Mrs. Bola Atta, said the essay
competition is for all SSS students across the country, provides an opportunity
for students to win prizes in the form of educational grants to help them
realise their goals in life.
“We are well aware that if you help get one child educated,
you help support an entire family as that child will eventually positively
impact his or her community. The competition is a key aspect of our investment
drive in human capital and 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 throughout the African
continent,” she said.
She explained that each year, the bank donates thousands of
books to students in Nigeria and other parts of Africa, under the ‘Read Africa’
initiative to encourage and promote the reading culture in secondary schools.
“We are driven by the mantra to do well and do good and we
will not relent in our efforts at touching lives through our various projects,
and initiatives,” she told the excited students.
According to her, the first prize for the UBA National Essay
Competition is a N1 million educational grant for the winner to study in any
African university of his or her choice while the second and third prizes are
N750,000 and N500,000 educational grants respectively.
She explained that entries received from students for the
competition will be reviewed by a distinguished panel of judges made up of
professors from reputable Nigerian Universities, who will then shortlist 12
best essays for further assessment. A second round of the competition will
involve the 12 finalists who will write a second supervised essay from which
three best essays will be selected. “Three best essays will be selected as the
overall winners from 12 finalists that will emerge from the first round of the
competition,” she noted.
Atta explained that the choice of essay for this year’s
competition is one that helps promote creative and analytical thinking in
students. The students are to develop a manual on any chosen form of technology
or innovation (real or imagined) and make this manual discernable for the
simplest of minds
It is important to note that apart from Nigeria, the
national essay competition is also held in other African countries including
Ghana and Senegal with more countries to be rolled out in the first quarter of
2018.
Equally speaking, the Deputy CEO, Anglophone Africa, Ebele
Ogbue, said that knowledge is power and the only effective way to transform
Africa is through Education. “Undoubtedly, the future of any nation rests on
the younger generation. Hence, the legacy passed on by the preceding generation
could make a nation. Therefore, investing in the future of the youths is key to
redeeming the economy for the collective good. This is why UBA’s support of
education across Africa is relentless,” he stated.
As a the CSR platform for the UBA Group, UBA Foundation
embodies the Group’s CSR objectives and seeks to impact positively on the
society through a number of laudable projects and initiatives.
Uj. N. Dominic/GEE
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