UBA Foundation, the corporate social responsibility arm of the United Bank for Africa Plc, says the portal to submit entries for the 2023 edition of its annual National Essay Competition (NEC) in Nigeria is now open.
The first prize winner will receive an educational grant of N5 million to study at any African university of their choice, whilst the second and third prizes now stand at N3 million and N2.5 million educational grants for any African University.
This is in addition to gifts of brand new Laptops and other educational tools for winners of the 12 best essays, to help them with their studies and other tertiary research work.
The National Essay Competition is part of UBA Foundation’s education initiative aimed at promoting literacy and encouraging healthy and intellectual competition amongst senior secondary school students in Nigeria and across the African continent.
A statement by the group said it expects increased participation in this edition, the 13th in the series, from senior secondary school students across Nigeria as they can conveniently submit their entries from the comfort of their homes or schools through the UBA Foundation NEC digital submission portal at https://www.ubagroup.com/national-essay-competition/.
The essay topic for this year, the statement said, is: “Will Artificial Intelligence (AI)take over Human Intelligence? What should students do to ensure AI doesn’t override but enhance their ability to learn through research?” Students are expected to properly research, write, scan and upload their handwritten essays to the digital portal on or before October 20th, 2023.
The statement quoted Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, UBA Foundation, Mrs. Bola Atta, as saying that with the digital submission portal, more students in senior secondary schools across the country now have the opportunity to scan and send in their entries and compete to win any of the educational grants for study at any university of their choice on the African continent.
According to her, “we have worked hard to ensure that every Nigerian high school student who wishes to, will be able to enter for the NEC 2023 and stand a chance to win a fully funded University education through the UBA Foundation.
“For several years, we have upgraded our processes to ensure that our UBA Foundation programmes continue to impact lives in meaningful ways. We realise that the use of technologically driven initiatives is part of modern day and we would like to reach students in their comfort zones, which is why we encourage students to submit their essays digitally.”
She pointed out that the submissions will be evaluated by judges who are professors from reputable Nigerian Universities. The professors will select the top 12 finalists who will take home consolation prizes including personal computers. These 12 finalists will also write another supervised essay where the top three winners will be announced at the grand finale to be held in November at UBA’s head office in Lagos, Nigeria.
The National Essay Competition has been rolled out in other African countries where UBA operates, in order to open-up the opportunity for more African children to benefit from the educational grants.
UBA Foundation embodies the UBA Group’s CSR objectives and seeks to impact positively on societies through several laudable projects and initiatives. The Foundation through its Education pillar has donated hundreds of thousands of books to students across Africa under the ‘Read Africa’ initiative aimed at encouraging and promoting the reading culture in African youths. Its National Essay Competition has also afforded the opportunity to hundreds of students to improve their lives through higher education.
