The Royal Commonwealth Society in Nigeria (RCS) has launched the 2022 Queen’s Commonwealth essay competition in commemoration of Queen Elizabeth II 70th year reign on the throne, and to boost education in the country.
Blackson Olaseni Bayewumi, the RCS country director in Nigeria disclosed this on Friday, June 3 in Abuja during the launch of the 2022 Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition, hosted by Cradle 2 Harvard International School.
Participants are selected from different categories ranging from different age classes starting from age 14 to 18.
According to Bayewumi, “The essay competition is staged annually in fulfillment of one of the virtues and values of the commonwealth.”
“We are publicly launching the 2022 edition of Queen’s commonwealth essay competition for schools in Nigeria for them to join their colleagues across the commonwealth nations to participate in the competition.
The winner will be invited to one of the palaces in London for a one-week event and a lot of certificates will be given. “Secondly, we’re celebrating her majesty’s Platinum Jubilee. She has been dedicated and committed to promoting the values of the commonwealth,” he said.
Besides, he explained that the launching of the essay competition was also to commemorate the platinum jubilee of the Queen of England, Elizabeth II who marked her 70th-year reign on the throne.
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Phrank Shaibu, the host and president of Cradle 2 Harvard International School speaking at the event, said his love for writing and education inspired him to host the official flag-off of the essay competition.
Shaibu reiterated that the competition is being held across the commonwealth nations of the world as it is also open to all senior and junior high schools in both private and public settings.
He pointed out that Nigeria needs a drastic reform in its educational system.
“I have seen the state of our educational system, particularly as it relates to what we call educational tourism and I believe it is an opportunity for us, particularly myself and an educationist to lead to charge and salvage our educational system.
“We have over 215 universities in Nigeria, and the carrying capacity for these universities is not more than 225,000 annually. We have over 1.9 million students across the federation who writes the JAMB exams every year, what that means is that there’s danger,” Shaibu said.
Moreover, he unequivocally stated that there is a need to improve infrastructure in other to accommodate more students into the classrooms.
Shaibu in his speech maintained that a vast majority of high school students who did not make it to the tertiary level are part of those constituting nuisance thereby breeding insecurity in the country.
“The only way we can stop insecurity in Nigeria is to first deal with the issue of education and that’s why we are here to lead the campaign at Cradle 2 Harvard International School,” he said.
