Abia Govt schools boycott competition meant to revive students’ interest in Maths

From Okey Sampson, Umuahia

Government secondary schools in Abia State boycotted a Mathematics quiz competition meant to revive students’ interest in the subject in secondary schools in the state and organized by the Prince Paul Ikonne Foundation (PPIF)

Deeper Life High School, Aba, emerged winner of the competition with a prize money of N1 million, while Divine International School, and Christ the King Cathedral (CKC), College, all inAba, won the second and third positions, with N500,000 and N250,000 cash, respectively.

Speaking at the event, Media Adviser of the Foundation, Chief Moses Ayo Orji disclosed that the foundation organized the competition as part of its corporate social responsibilities to inspire students, schools, and parents to strive for excellence and nurture a culture of achievement, purpose, and innovation.

Orji explained that the Foundation discovered that students were gradually losing interest in mathematics and becoming more engrossed with their phones and decided to contribute its quota to the revival of the important subject which is the key to the study of science and technology.

He stated that celebrating the intellectual talents of young minds in the state has been a lifelong desire of the founder of the foundation,Prince Paul Ikonne.

On the non participation of public schools in the first and second editions of the competition, Orji informed that they were duly invited.

“They were invited for the preliminaries, both in writing and on the radio. This was published for not less than two weeks before we began to have the submissions. Even last year, we never had a public school, and we believe that something has to be done.”

Representatives of the schools; Wisdom Okoro, of Deeper Life High School, Aba; Emmanuel Chijioke of Divine International School, Aba, and Ikechukwu Okoroafor of CKC, attributed the victories to their teachers and the teamwork between them.