United Bank for Africa has launched its annual UBA Foundation National Essay Competition.
The competition is aimed at promoting a reading culture and encouraging healthy and intellectual competition among secondary school students.
The National Essay Competition, which is a corporate social responsibility initiative of UBA Ghana, has for the past few years provided a competitive platform to develop the intellectual and writing abilities for students in Ghana.
Similar competition is also organized in some other African countries including Nigeria, Senegal, Mozambique and Kenya.
Speaking at the launch of this year’s competition, Regional Chief Executive Officer for UBA Abiola Bawuah noted that although government is doing its best in making the education sector better, a lot more ought to be done.
“Government is doing so much in education today that I don’t think there is any excuse for anybody to say my mother died or my father died so I wasn’t in school.
“Government has done so much, but you will also agree with me that there is still so much to be done. UBA says we are collaborating with government in a very big dimension.”
A Deputy Director for Secondary Education at the Ghana Education Service, Augustus Owusu Agyemfra, pledged the support of the service to engage more students to participate in this year’s competition.
“With the Ghana Education Service, we are ready to partner UBA and we are putting strategies such us getting in contact with all school heads to let them know about this programme and also make sure the information gets to all Senior High Schools in Ghana.”
First runner-up of last year’s edition Manasseh Sampana from St. Thomas Aquinas High School recounted his experience in the competition.
“I just love writing so I was just looking for essay competition and I saw the UBA essay competition so entered, my experience was great at first I was feeling nervous after everything I felt okay.”
This year’s topic for the essay competition is ‘Investigative Journalism is Seen As Invasion of Privacy. Discuss’.
UBA Ghana is a subsidiary of UBA Group, one of Africa’s leading financial institutions with operations in 20 African countries.
It provides banking services to more than 15 million customers globally, through diverse channels.
United Bank for Africa also has a presence in the global financial centres, United Kingdom, New York, United States and France.
By Elizabeth Owusua Twum|3news.com|Ghana