Over 800 Senior High and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions are expected to participate in this year’s National Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Project competition dubbed ‘STEMMNNOVATION’.
The competition, which will be launched on July 3rd, will see all the participating schools locking horns with their creative potentials in finding solutions to challenges confronting their immediate community or the country.
Currently, registration of the participating schools is ongoing in all regions across the country after which the regional contest would begin.
Creativity
All the participants would be current beneficiaries of the Free Senior High Programme and would be challenged to develop STEM projects on topics in the areas of urban gardening, clean water and flexible use of electricity.
The Deputy Coordinator of the Free Senior High School (FSHS) Secretariat, Miss Afra Sika Mensah, who disclosed this to the media on Friday, was upbeat that the second edition of the event would be more competitive.
She indicated that after the official launch in Accra, the competition would begin with the various regions competing to select qualifiers to represent them at the finals to be held in September.
A letter dated 26th May 2023 and signed by the Chief Director of the Ministry of Education, Mrs Mamle Andrews, urged the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Ghana TVET Service (GTVETS) to ensure that their institutions register and participate in the event.
The letter requested all Senior High and TVET institutions across the country to participate in the competition to help them to exhibit their skills and develop their competitive talents.
Background
Last year, a total of 200 schools submitted videos of their projects meant for the contest but only 97 of the schools qualified after going through vetting by the team of experts put together for that purpose.
The Kumasi Academy Senior High School won the maiden edition of the competition after scoring 24.6 points to beat Pope John Senior High and Seminary and the enterprising Worawora Senior High School with 24.4 and 23.8 points to place 1st and 2nd runner-up respectively.
For emerging winners, Kumasi Academy SHS took home a trophy, a laptop, a printer and a Gh.c 12,000 cash prize.
Pope John Senior High and Seminary was presented with a plaque, a laptop, a printer and Gh.c 7000 cash for emerging 1st runner-up while Worawora SHS took home a plaque, a laptop, a printer and Gh5000 cash.
Awards were also presented to 16 others as regional champions, overall best recycling project, overall best coding and programming project and overall best solar project.
Other awards went to the most popular project, overall best TVET school, most artistic STEMNNOVATION awards and best STEMNNOVATION award among others.