Kwara pupils beat Lagos 5-1 to win Presidential Schools Debate a fifth time
- Four Kwara primary school pupils defeated Lagos 5-1 in the final in Abuja.
- It is the state's fifth straight win at the Federal Ministry of Education contest.
- The team got a trophy and ₦500,000, and a Kwara SUBEB chief was named best in Nigeria.
Four public primary school pupils from Kwara State have won this year's Presidential Schools Debate Championship, beating Lagos State 5-1 in the final in Abuja.
The win, reported by Punch and Leadership, makes it five titles in a row for Kwara at the competition run by the Federal Ministry of Education.
The pupils are Halimoh Abdulazeez (Ilorin West), Khadija Kazeem (Offa), Omolola Ibrahim (Moro) and Samaila Daniel (Ilorin East). On the way to the final they saw off Edo, Delta, Katsina and Niger.
The Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Aisha Garba, handed the team a trophy and ₦500,000. Leadership reported that the contest ended on Thursday.
Why it matters
The debate, approved in 2001 under former President Olusegun Obasanjo, is meant to build reading, research and public speaking skills in pupils, and to give children from government schools a national stage.
Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, in a statement on his Facebook page on Saturday, said the result showed that his administration's spending on education over seven years was paying off.
"I am, indeed, encouraged to do more," he said.
He thanked officials of the State Ministry of Education and Human Capital Development, the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), the teachers who trained the pupils and their parents.
The governor also celebrated the board's executive chairman, Sheu Adaramaja, who was named Best SUBEB Chairman in Nigeria at the event. Adaramaja said the win confirmed Kwara's public schools as a home of academic excellence, and credited teachers' welfare, including prompt salaries and regular promotions of SUBEB personnel.
Garba praised President Bola Tinubu for backing the competition, according to Leadership.
What happens next
The pupils return home with the trophy and the cash prize. For parents across Kwara, the state government is pointing to the result as evidence that public primary education can compete nationally, though the sources give no details of new spending or programmes.
