For the second consecutive year running, Owaza Community Secondary School in Abia State has emerged the winner of the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria-organised 2018 Environmental Awareness Quiz Competition for four Land Hub community secondary schools in Abia and Rivers States.
The defending champions trounced Community Comprehensive Secondary School, Rumuokwurushi, Community Secondary School, Aleto and Community Secondary School, Rumuopara, all in Rivers State, to clinch the coveted prize.
The quiz competition, which covers questions drawn from Environmental Studies, Mathematics, English, Physics and Chemistry, was keenly contested by the representatives of these four schools.
The Owaza school scored a total of 98 points to beat Community Secondary School, Rumuopara, which came second with a total score of 90 points, followed by Community Secondary School, Aleto, which scooped third position with a total score of 85 points while Community Comprehensive Secondary School, Rumuokwurusi came fourth with a total score of 80 points.
Speaking with newsmen shortly after Owaza Community Secondary School was announced the overall winner, in Port Harcourt, last Thursday, the Commissioner, Ministry of Environment, Abia State, Aham Uko, said that the Abia State Government was doing everything humanly possible to ensure that education took premium place in the lives of the people.
Uko added that with the result, Abia State students have shown that the huge investment being made by the government in improving education infrastructure in the state was not in vain.
He expressed excitement over the performance of Abia students, promising to ensure that the Abia State Government gives free scholarship to the best performing debater, who excelled in the SPDC 2017 and 2018 Quiz Competitions.
Also speaking, the Rivers State Commissioner for Education, Dr Tamunosisi Gogo-Jaja, stated that one of the surest ways of confronting militancy in the Niger Delta was investing in education, adding that “any man that opens the door of schools shuts the door of prisons”.
Gogo-Jaja noted that in the past, education helped to build the mind of people, and urged Shell to partner with the Rivers State Government to ensure that public schools achieved their mandate in efforts to sustain the development of the state.
In his remarks, External Relations Manager, SPDC, Mr Igo Weli urged the students to focus on making the best of the opportunity given them by their parents and the government, by working hard to excel at all times.
Weli explained that one of the reasons why SPDC targets students from public schools was to correct the erroneous impression that only those in private schools excel in academics, adding that Nigerian students in hard-to-reach communities also have the potentials to unleash high intellectual capacities never before imagined.