Seplat Energy Plc on Friday presented N18.675million project support to three secondary schools in Edo and Delta States.
The energy company also presented N675,000 as scholarship award to nine students of the three secondary schools.
The three secondary schools emerged the overall winners, first and second runners up in the firm’s 2022 pearl quiz and the 11 edition which took place on Friday in Benin City.
The three schools are Green Park Academy, Benin City, Deeper Life High School, Delta state and University of Benin Demonstration Secondary School (UDSS), Benin City.
Green Park emerged the overall winner and carted away the star prize of N10million having garnered 80 Points to defeat Deeper Life High School.
Deeper Life High School got N5million while the University of Benin Demonstration Secondary School (UDSS) came third.
The three participating students of Green Park Academy were offered scholarship award of N100,000 each, Deeper Life High School students got N75,000 each while the three participating students from UDDS got N50,000 each as scholarship.
Speaking at the end of the keenly competitive exercise, Samson Ezugworie, the Chief Operating Officer of Seplat said over 50,000 students in Edo and Delta states have been impacted by the organisation in its various educational intervention programmes.
“Through this competition we have touched over 50,000 students from Edo and Delta states, and out of this 50,000 so many of them have gone through university education, so many of them have gone through internship with Seplat energy and so many of them have been employed in different places in the world today.
“We will like to also highlight the fact that through this programme on annual basis we continued to engender and drive human capital development on one hand and structural development across the winning schools on the other hand.
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“For today’s event as it has been, the third winning school will go home with project support of N3million and the three participating students will have a N50,000 scholarship.
“The second school will also benefit from SEPLAT Energy JVC with sincere support from our partners with N5million project support and the three participating students will also have N75,000 scholarship.
“While the first winning school, will have a project support of N10million and the three participating students will have N100,000 scholarship each,” he said.
Ezugworie opined that through the financial support, SEPLAT Energy Plc has continued to simultaneously impact on education in the two states.
He said one way is to continue to drive excellent, healthy competition among all the schools in Edo and Delta states as well as to contribute to the infrastructural development of the schools in its areas of operations.
“This is one way that SEPLAT energy thrives to give back to the society, drive sustainability and ensure that we create capacity for the future and that we develop the future leaders of this country.
“Also to ensure that we actively engage our future leaders in a way and manner that they will grow the necessary competence and lay the foundation for the future such that the things that our generations have failed to do we have hope in the future and that the future will be better than today,” he added.
He, however, assured of the company’s support to continue to drive the annual event in the future.
Earlier, Chioma Nwachuku, director, External Affairs and Sustainability, said a total of 682 schools participated in both the test and competition stages of the competition across the two states.
Chioma, represented by Emmanuel Otokhine, Base manager, Western Asset, said out of the figure, 130 progressed to the test stage.
She said the essence of the quiz was to inculcate in the students the spirit of team work and competitiveness.
“Through this competition and our various educational intervention programmes we want to restore that sense of pride in education and also to provide a platform for students from various background whether you are from poor or rich home to give you a platform through which you can climb to great height academically and to reward academic excellence.
