Corps members organise spelling competition for students in Aramoko

Four Batch B 2015 National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members serving in Aramoko community in Ekiti West Local Government Area of Ekiti State, have identified spelling challenge as a hurdle pupils need to scale to achieve the desired end in their educational pursuit.

The corps members: Ajetomobi Roland, Joel Mercy, Odeyemi Joshua and Fakoyede Fisayo, who had their primary assignments at Aramoko District Secondary School and Community Secondary School, Aramoko consequently organised a spelling bee competition for junior and senior secondary school students in the council area in the spirit of Community Development Service (CDS).

Roland, who spoke on behalf of the organisers, said the competition, which took participants through various stages, “was aimed at building a better educational background for students in rural communities”.

The corps members, who said, “when you educate a child, you are educate a nation,” said they came up with the concept following their discovery of the poor educational background of  students from community schools with most of them having difficulty in reading or writing, thus making passing examinations a burden.

The month-long competition tagged: “Ekiti West Spelling Challenge for Secondary Schools,” which had three stages for the junior and senior categories, drilled participants at group and individual levels on proper use of English tenses, spellings, construction of sentences, among others.

Winners went home with exciting gifts including scholarship for one term, school bags, textbooks and school uniforms, while other participants got consolatory prizes.

Wife of  Alara of Aramoko, Olori Olu Adeyemi, lauded the organisers for the “mind training, brain challenging exercise” for students in the community, assuring that she would ensure students all over the state benefit from the gesture through radio and television.

Speaking on behalf of the contestants, Miss Oluwadamilola Arinde, winner in the senior category, expressed joy for the opportunity to participate in such a developmental competition.