• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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BusinessDay

Kids’ Lit Quiz winner Grange school to represent Nigeria in New Zealand, July

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For the second time in a row, Grange School, Ikeja, has emerged winner of the Kids’ Lit Quiz Nigeria competition that will see it represent Africa’s largest economy in the world final in New Zealand.

The school came first after beating seven others at the second edition of the literature quiz held recently in Lagos.

The school will represent Nigeria in the world final, July, where it will go head to head with 10 other schools from different countries.

The Kids’ Lit Quiz is an annual literature quiz for students aged 10 – 13 years.

The quiz was founded by New Zealand quizmaster Wayne Mills, who reads enough books to write several thousand questions each year.

Quizzes are held in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Indonesia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand, United Kingdom and the USA.

Wayne Mills, founder of kids Lit Quiz and international Quizmaster said before when he started in 1991 in New Zealand, people were rewarded for playing sports and games, but no one got rewarded for being a reader hence, he started the completion so that children can be rewarded for their reading ability.

Speaking on the performance of the school, Chinyere Udunwa, representative of Grange school said the position shows the efforts and handwork that was put into the preparatory process by the school.

“For us, we see it as a leap and a great achievement that our school displayed an outstanding result by coming out top in the competition, which means we are on the right track,” she said.

The 2020 edition of the national Kids’ Lit quiz contest came with a lot of intrigue with the various schools showing prowess in answering questions in literature.

Unlike in 2019, this year’s contest featured schools from Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, who contested; as well as students from several other schools who came to observe the competition. 

This year, eight schools and 20 teams participated, an impressive number when compared with the maiden edition were only 10 teams from five schools participated.

“There were several improvements in this year’s challenge as we received entries from more schools that showed interest in participating in the competition, said Maluchi Chukwuemeka, national coordinator of Kids’ Lit Quiz Nigeria told BusinessDay.

“We also invited both primary and secondary students who came as observers and in the end; they showed optimism towards the contest after they saw the quiz helps in improving the reading culture of students,” she said.  

When asked what the criteria in participating was, Chukwuemeka said there was no special criterion in the selection of the schools but there is a standard criterion worldwide which entails a school paying a $100 for a team of four students.

“A school is allowed to enrol a maximum of four teams with each of the teams comprising four students from the school,” she said.

The four-member team of Grange school who won at the national level will on July 10th-17th head to New Zealand to represent Nigeria in the world finals where it will compete with 10 other countries of the world.

In 2019 when the school represented Nigeria at the international level, it didn’t sit well for the school as they faced stiff competition from students in other countries when they travelled down to Singapore, where the competition was held.

This year, the school says it is optimistic in coming back home with the cup and would put in efforts to see that happening.

Christine Lemeh, senior librarian of Grange school “We hope to do better this time at the international level as we have gotten the experience and know what to expect”.