Mukisa Alvin wins this year’s essay competition

Mukisa Alvin, a student from Princes Diana High School has won this year’s UBA Foundation National Essay Competition.
Alvin beat 700 students from various schools who took part in the competition. Alvin walked away with a laptop, Shs 3.5 million and other goodies from the United Bank of Africa (UBA).
The notable schools include Mengo SS, Tororo Girls School, Exodus College School and sundry. The students were tasked to write about how Uganda can contain these adverse impacts on the climate?
Upon announcing him as the winner, Alvin applauded his teachers and his mother who guided him throughout the competition and pledged to engage more in such competitions which aim at shaping their future and sharing brilliant ideas which can lead to the development of the country.
The CEO/Managing Director of UBA Uganda Chioma Mang said this is the second National Essay Competition the bank is holding in Uganda. We hold such competition in all the 20 African countries they operate.
“We hold such competitions because we believe in the youth in Africa. If you look at the demography of Africa, the population of Africa is made up almost 50% by youth. We believe that youths are the future of Africa, including Uganda. We have to invest and prepare them to face the wider world,” she said.
“We run this essay competition because we also believe that communication is key in everything that you do. We do it to give them confidence to improve their creativity and writing skills,” she said.
She said out of the 700 students, 12 came up. We have given them gifts in the form of money, laptops and certificates to encourage them to continue to be the best that they can be in their schools.
She stated that the Bank provides financial support to schools they attend, teachers and parents to be able to pay school fees for their children.
Mulidwa Ismail,  the director Basic and secondary education at the ministry of education and sports said we encourage this kind of program in all our schools and teachers should be fair to the learners and give them the kind of holistic education they are supposed to get.
He said learners who participate in such competitions to develop their reading, writing and speaking skills and another of them will tomorrow be members of parliament because they are accurate. They have been trained, and supported to develop talent.
“The Ministry is carrying out a similar program in different regions of the country. As a ministry we are implementing the lower secondary curriculum which is competency based that is aiming at developing the skills of learners. By doing this, UBA is supporting what the ministry has put in the curriculum,” he said.
He stated that the ministry is shifting from the traditional assessment where it used to look at UNEB 100% assessment at school level. When learners develop their skills and are assessed, it will help them to move on. The Directorate of Industrial Training is doing the same thing, assessing and certifying some of these competencies or skills.