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Sixteen pupils from four junior high schools— New Generation School, S. Sowah Boye Memorial School, Joehans Academy and St. Charles Preparatory School— have made it to the finals of a competition aimed at developing a solution to end Ghana’s endemic waste challenge.

The pupils, who represented and qualified their schools for the Foundation for Generational Thinkers (FOGET) and Ghana National Association of Private Schools (GNAPS) 2018 Inter-school Quiz and Challenge, have been given the assignment: “Your community has been filth-laden. Devise a means by which waste can properly be managed to ensure a clean environment”.

Each of the contesting schools is expected to produce a 30-page document that contains a scientifically based solution to the menace with referencing to avoid any incidence of academic dishonesty or plagiarism.

FOGET, a non-governmental organisation into youth empowerment, gave the schools laptops and pen drives to aid their representatives in the assigned project. And to enable the contestants have first-hand knowledge and experience about waste management, organisers of the competition also took them on fieldtrips to a number of waste management companies in the Accra Metropolis.

The recommendation chosen by a panel of jurors at the end of the competition would be presented to government for a possible implementation by the relevant ministries.

How the 4 Finalists made it

The preliminary stage of the competition saw 34 basic schools, all members of GNAPS and from the Zone ‘5’ of the Greater Accra region, take part.

As the contest progressed keenly through knockout phases, the number of the participating schools dropped to 8. The surviving eight were divided into groups A and B for the semi-final ties.

Joehans topped Group A with 59 points whilst St. Charles Preparatory School obtained 56 points, Zion Academy 49 and Visionoport International School 48. The Group B semi-finals ended with New Generation School crowned winners with 74 points, S. Sowah Boye Memorial School garnering 59 points, God’s Gift International School 48 and Josephus Memorial School 46 points. The group winners and first runners-up qualified for the finals of the tournament called “the Challenge”.

Best Legacy is to make the Youths Critical Thinkers— FOGET

Addressing stakeholders after the semi-finals Wednesday, FOGET’s President and Founder, Prosper Afetsi, said the worthiest legacy anybody could leave behind on earth was to provide an avenue for young people to be critical thinkers.

The quiz and the challenge competition, he said, were some of the avenues being deployed by FOGET for the young generation not to repeat the mistakes the adults had made in their own generation.

“The challenge aspect of the competition was to give the students an insight and experience of how to properly manage environmental issues in their own small ways. This, I strongly believe, will go a long way to influence behaviours and attitudes toward the environment or perhaps their immediate families, friends and community,” said Mr. Afetsi whose organisation has run the competition successfully for three years now.

He also appealed to government institutions, departments, agencies, corporate organisations, religious bodies, associations, civil society organisations and other benevolent groups to support the competition with cash or souvenirs for the pupils.

The Chairman of GNAPS Zone ‘5’, Nii Kwei, congratulated the pupils and the schools for what he described as “a wonderful performance” and showed appreciation to FOGET for investing so much resources in ensuring the quiz aspect of the competition was “a great success”.

A satisfied-looking Mr. Kwei also noted the quiz competition would help to boost the pupils’ preparations towards the upcoming Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).