Story by Lawrence Trusida
At least 500 students battled for top honours at the Inaugural National Spelling Bee competition held at Mother Touch School in Harare this Saturday.
It was a battle of linguistical skills as primary and secondary school students gathered at Mother Touch School in Harare for the first ever National Spelling Bee competition.
The competition, which has its roots in Canada is meant to sharpen the minds of learners.
“It is a programme that most if us as students at the time missed. Now this is an opportunity for youngsters to express themselves in terms of language, diction, pronunciations. This is a very excruciating exercise. This programme started small, but this is the first national event and we are hoping to have provincial finals next year,” said artist Albert Nyathi, who is the director, National Spelling Bee.
Hosts, Mother Touch Group of Schools expressed optimism the event will in the long term improve learning capacity.
“We are happy to have hosted this very first event, but the objective was to make sure that the students compete in a conduce environment for them to think and I believe we succeeded in that endeavour, and I hope those students that lost also learnt from the winners,” noted Mother Touch Group of Schools representative, Doreen Nyachoto.
Meanwhile, Kelly Gutu from Springs of Grace School was crowned Zimbabwe Spelling Bee Champion in the senior category after beating more than 200 other contestants.
Gutu will be part of a six-member Zimbabwe team that will participate at the African Spelling Bee Championships in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from the 4th to the 9th of December.
Grade 5 pupil Ryan Mudende from Goldridge Primary School in Kwekwe was the winner in the juniors’ category.
