Students and patron teachers of the four regional schools that were crowned finalists of the Stanbic National Schools Championship 2019 pose for a group photo. The four will battle it out at the Championship finale in July where one winner will be crowned.
Four secondary schools from across Uganda have emerged finalists of this year’s Stanbic National Schools Championship that has been running since February.
The four were unveiled at a 6 day boot camp held in Gayaza High School this week. They include Nyakasura School from Western region, St Mary’s College, Kisubi from Central region, Holy Cross View SSS from Eastern region and St Mary’s College, Aboke from the Northern region.
The finalists will present their businesses before a panel of judges at the championship finale in July where the winner will walk away with numerous prizes for their school including a trip to South Africa.
The four schools were also awarded UGX 1 million worth of seed money to inject into their businesses which were presented and justified in front of a panel of judges. The marks accrued from the presentations will contribute to their final score in the Championship finale.
Stanbic Bank Head of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Barbara Kasekende said, “My congratulations go to all the schools that have participated in this year’s championship. The quality of competition has been very impressive thus far. This year particularly has seen great enthusiasm from the students which continues to prove there is growing popularity of the competition across the country year on year.”
Kasekende added that the four finalists and selected participating schools will now be invited for the national championship grand finale at which a combination of results from the vocational tasks and business skills assignments during the bootcamp.
“The business project operation as well as the final presentations made on this day, will culminate into the announcement of a national champion. The winner will walk away with prizes for both the participant and their school.” Kasekende said.
This is the 4th edition of the National Schools Championship under the theme “Empowering the job creators of tomorrow”. The annual competition seeks to equip students with business and enterprise skills in a bid to nurture entrepreneurship, creativity and long term business thinking.
This year, the competition began with activations across the four regions of the country. Participating schools then went through classroom tests after which they had a business idea generation session that allowed them to present their business ideas to their respective school communities.
“The boot camp is the second last stage of the completion where students are equipped with business, writing, life, presentation and marketing skills to enable them set up a business project in their communities,” Kasekende concluded.
