MONROVIA – Fifteen-year-old Welleh J. Cooper of Spiritant Academy, has won the `Back to School´ essay competition sponsored by MoneyGram International.
Report by Edwin G. Genoway, Jr [email protected]
Welleh was among 59 students from various high schools across the country, which took part in the essay competition.
In order to promote education and improve the writing skills of students in Liberia, MoneyGram International as part of its regular yearly back to school program, requested high school students in the competition to write an essay not less than 500 words why their school deserves to win US$1,000 worth of school supplies.
Judges, who read through the essay papers, said Spiritant Academy represented by Ms. Cooper of the 12th Grade, won the competition.
One of the judges, Mrs. Hattie Wureh Hunder, said there were independent judges recruited to select the best entries sent in by the students.
According to her, though they were looking for only three winners, but in their wisdom, they had to shortlist six students out of the 59 entries.
“It was a difficult task to select those schools; there was no way that we only select three and drop the other three. That prompted us judges to appeal to MoneyGram to find prices for the other three winners,” Ms. Hunder stated.
She explained that students who were shortlisted were called in by judges and given a validation test to ensure whether the work were their (students) own writing.
“Because of the level of dishonesty in our society today, we wanted those students who were shortlisted to further convince us, so we called them in and gave them a validation test to rewrite on the same topic, and they all performed, in fact, some of them even did excellence over their original entrance submitted previously,” she explained.
Mrs. Hunder said the entries were scrutinized for grammatical errors, flow of ideas and accuracy.
MoneyGram International Agent in Liberia, Isaac Tetteh, said he was happy to see the improvement in students who part took in the competition.
According to him, it was MoneyGram`s way of encouraging Liberians students to take interest in research, reading, and writing.
Tetteh noted that MoneyGram, which is a money transfer agency, will continue to support its back to school program in order to continually motivate students and to support educational activities in Liberia.
“It is a normal thing for MoneyGram International to sponsor such programs; we do that every year like the way you have Christmas extravaganza. We chose to do essay this year because we want students to have interest in writing or reading,” he explained.
The winner of the competition, Welleh Cooper, in her essay, convinced judges why her school deserves to win the US$1,000 worth of school supplies.
She drew the attentions of the judges and convinced them on the need of why her school deserves the money to equip the library, laboratory and other educational activities in order to create a conducive learning environment for them students.
When quizzed about her view on assertion made by former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf that the education system in Liberia is a mess, Ms. Cooper respectfully disagreed.
She told FrontPageAfrica shortly after the program that education and the learning process in Liberia do not only depend on the teachers or the schools, but that students themselves have a role to play.
“Education or learning is left with the students. If the teacher presents the lessons to us the students, it is left with our own seriousness to take them in or leave them and not do anything at all to improve our skills,” she stated.
Ms. Cooper used the occasion to encourage her fellow teenagers to take their lesson seriously so that they can be better citizens and help to positively contribute to their society.
Other students, who also won lesser prizes included Fredrick Kerkula, a 10th grader at Paynesville Seventh Day Adventist High School, Kathrina Tulay, an 8th grader at Isaac A. David Memorial School, Alex Kawah, Jr, a 12th grader at Christ the King Catholic School, and Leela Keturah, an 11th grader at Maretha International Preparatory School.