*N300,000 for 1st, N200,000 for his parents, full post-primary scholarship
*As teachers rewarded
Jemes Venor, second position.
By Kemi Kasumu and Busola Samuel
The Nigerian Tulip International Colleges (NTIC), recently, held an award and prize giving ceremony for successful candidates of its 2017 national mathematics competition. This year’s edition was the 14th of such competition.
The event which held at the Imperial Hall, Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos witnessed the different displays of academic and cross-cultural displays as an Indian girl, Bhardwaj Ishi, from Indian Language School, Lagos clinched the best prize to return home with splashes of honours and appreciations such N300,000 to herself, N200,000 to her parents and other awards to her teachers, a big split unit air conditioner to him and, above all, full scholarship in her post-primary school education.
Bhardwaj Ishi, referred to during the ceremony as Genius in Mathematics, scored 97.56 in the mathematics competition, which had students from across the country.
Coming second was Chukwuanukwu Kachi Patrick of God’s Wisdom International School, Anambra State, who scored 95.18 clinch N200,000 to himself, full post-primary school scholarship and other interesting prizes and awards to him and his parents and teachers.
Coming in the third position was James Venor of Bimstar Montessori School, Lagos, who scored 94.98 to also win a N200,000 prize and other awards for himself, his parents and teachers. Venor too had to himself a full post-primary school scholarship by the NTIC national mathematics competition organisers.
In a press release by Coordinator of the National Mathematics Competition in Nigeria’s South West Zone, Mr. Fevzi Senkal, copy of which was made available to The DEFENDER, mode of organisation of the competition was stated out.
“The whole country is divided into five zones with NTIC Abuja overseeing the coordination of the competition in the North Central and the South East, NTIC Kano supervises the competition in the North West, NTIC Yobe supervises the peace peaceful areas of the North East, NTIC Kaduna supervises the North Central while NTIC Ogun supervises the whole of South West and Kwara.
“The first stage of the competition was held on 4th February 2016 with more than 35,000 pupils nationwide. The second round took place on Saturday 4th March 2017. The second stage saw the best five from each state (except Lagos with 10 qualifiers) qualifying for the second stage.
“This year the competition has witnessed tremendously greater success both in quality and in quantity. The quality of the examination has improved to the extent of being used as the yardstick to measure the performance of mathematics teacher in public schools across the different education districts of the participating states,” Senkal said in the statement.
In his speech, Managing Director of NTIC, Mr. Orhan Kertin, who came in from Abuja, noted that there was nothing more important for the future of both countries of both the Turkish, their host country Nigeria and of their various pupils including India and the citizens than high quality education for all.
Kertin said, “It is necessary to underline the significant contribution of NTIC to the quality of education. For example, in terms of maths, NTIC has organized the 14th edition of Annual National Mathematics Competition for Primary 5 and 6 pupils produced by two of the leading institutions of Nigeria in the area of education; Nigerian Tulip International Colleges (NTIC) and National Mathematics Centre (NMC).
“NTIC is a non-governmental, non-political international educational institution operating 16 schools in six states in Nigeria. NTIC is aimed at producing academically excellent, morally upright and socially responsible citizens for Nigeria and the world in general.
“Now, let me briefly inform you about the long journey of exams and selections of 14th National Mathematics Competition. The first round of exam took place on 4th February with a participation of 34,000 pupils from 36 states across Nigeria. The top five students of each state took final exam on 4th March. The pupils who are here today are from South zone of Nigeria, consisting of 18 states. There are 15 students in this hall now who stand at the top of list of all participants from the South zone states.
“So, I am delighted to share this important moment of rewarding the young talents. I am also confident that all these efforts by NMC, NTIC and of course you parents, teachers and students who are among us will be fruitful. All of us in this hall are good. But none of us is as good as all of us. I look forward to hearing the results. Most important of all, I and my colleagues at NTIC look forward to working with you to take your recommendations forward,” said Mr. Orhan Kertin, the Managing Director of NTIC.
Very many great personalities including officials of Lagos State Government led by the Deputy Governor of the state graced the occasion.
