In its effort to improve the reading culture among Nigerians and curb the increasing rate of out-of-school children, a non- governmental group, Spelling Bee Africa Organisation (SBA), has held this year’s spelling bee in Ekiti with the winner getting a N500,000 cash prize.
In a statement, the group said it is now moving to organise a contest across the six geopolitical zones tagged, ‘Inter-Regional Spelling Bee Competition’, which it said will serve as a springboard for radical development of education in the country.
The Founder and Executive Director of SBA, Queeneth-Ndudim Owolabi, said the competition, being organised for primary and secondary school students in Ekiti since 2014, was conceptualised to promote scholarship by way of preparing children for academic competitiveness.
She said, “Since we started, over 30,000 students drawn from various private and public schools had participated, and going by the revelations of the State Ministry of Education, it has started contributing to educational development, with such good effect, I believe that it must be upgraded to the national level.”
Owolabi noted that the poor reading culture among Nigerians and increasing level of out-of-school children, at 13.2 million is a cogent reason for the private sector to support governments to tackle the scourge.
Owolabi also called for more support for the programme saying, “Funding of education is very tasking and capital intensive, governments can’t do it alone. It requires the services and contributions of other stakeholders.”
