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• Kwabena Baah-Adade (2nd right), Acting Managing Director, Graphic Communications Group Ltd (GCGL), making a statement at the launch.
• Kwabena Baah-Adade (2nd right), Acting Managing Director, Graphic Communications Group Ltd (GCGL), making a statement at the launch.

Junior Graphic National Essay Competition launched

The Editor of the Junior Graphic, Mrs Mavis Kitcher, has advised schoolchildren to strive to make a mark in school by reading widely and writing regularly.

She said many achievements by individuals, particularly students, were marked by what they had read and written, pointing out that reading and writing were at the heart of education.

“Without such a foundation, students will be confronted with varied problems as they progress in their education,” she pointed out.

Mrs Kitcher gave the advice at the launch of this year’s Junior Graphic National Essay Competition in Accra which is on the theme, ‘Taking a stand for excellence in education’.

For schoolchildren to be able to write well and be great scholars in future, she noted, the Junior Graphic had over the years focused on motivating children in basic schools to acquire the reading habit and improve on their vocabulary.

“The Junior Graphic is devoted to giving all students the best educative materials outside the classroom, which are well packaged and in simple language to widen your horizon,” she stated.

On the essay competition, she said it was meant to encourage students to think critically about the topics and offer ideas to the discourse which reflect on societal development.

She added that this year’s contest would challenge students to closely examine what went on in their schools, find out the causes and how they impacted the school environment, adding that it would also seek to assist students to exhibit their descriptive abilities and creativity.

Giving further details, Mrs Kitcher said this year’s competition, which would run from September 13 to November 1, 2017, would require participants to write an essay on a descriptive or analytical topic.
 
For the preliminary stage, she said, students would choose one  of the two topics to write on. From the entries that would be received, the best 10 essays would be selected from each region and students would write another essay at a designated place in each region to select the best 25 essays.

The best 10 essays would be awarded prizes while three out of that number would be given prime prizes, she added.

According to the editor, there would also be consolation prizes for other entries which would be found to be very good.

The Director, Newspapers of the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL), Mr Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafoh, said the essence of the competition was not only to win but to  participate and improve on their skills.

“The essence is to test you to see whether you can reason and whether you are able to put your thoughts together in a meaningful way that you can impact on someone else. Reading and writing make you a better reasoning person. It is only when you are able to do that that you create something that is of value for yourself,” he added.

The Director, Marketing and Sales of the GCGL, Mr Franklin Sowa, said the GCGL, publishers of the Junior Graphic, acknowledged that ‘knowledge is power’ and it was in its efforts to improve on the lives of students in reading and writing that it introduced the essay competition.

He promised wonderful prizes for those who would emerge  winners in the essay competition.

The acting Managing Director of the GCGL, Mr Kwabena Baah-Adade, advised participating students to desist from cheating by asking their older siblings to write the essays for them.

On his part, the Education Office Director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Ghana, Dr James Dobson, commended the GCGL for organising the national essay contest.

The Business Development Manager (Ghana, Togo and Benin) of BiC, Mr George Nkonsah, urged students to put up their best, adding that aside from the cash amount, they would offer about 20,000 crystal fine units of pens to support the competition.

The Junior Graphic National Essay Competition is sponsored by Vodafone, General Media Group, Kingdom Books and Stationery, iLearn Educational Tablets and BiC.

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