UBA Foundation, the corporate social responsibility arm of the United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, has announced the commencement of the 2023 edition of its annual National Essay Competition (NEC) in Nigeria, with a call for entries.

Now in its 13th year, the annual National Essay Competition is part of UBA Foundation’s education initiative aimed at promoting literacy and encouraging healthy and intellectual competition amongst senior secondary school students in Nigeria and across the African continent.

The 2023 edition promises increased participation from senior secondary school students across Nigeria as they can conveniently submit their entries from the comfort of their homes or schools through the UBA Foundation NEC digital submission portal at https://www.ubagroup.com/national-essay-competition/.

The essay topic for this year is “Will Artificial Intelligence (AI) take over Human Intelligence? What should students do to ensure AI doesn’t override but enhance their ability to learn through research?” Students are expected to properly research, write, scan and upload their handwritten essays to the digital portal on or before October 20th, 2023.

The first prize winner will receive an educational grant of N5 million to study at any African university of their choice, whilst the second and third prizes now stand at N3 million and N2.5 million educational grants for any African University.

Also, winners of the 12 best essays, will go home with brand new Laptops and other educational tools to help them with their studies and other tertiary research work.

The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, UBA Foundation, Mrs. Bola Atta, said that with the digital submission portal, more students in senior secondary schools across the country now have the opportunity to scan and send in their entries and compete to win any of the educational grants for study at any university of their choice on the African continent.

She said, “We have worked hard to ensure that every Nigerian high school student who wishes to, will be able to enter for the NEC 2023 and stand a chance to win a fully funded University education through the UBA Foundation.

“For several years, we have upgraded our processes to ensure that our UBA Foundation programmes continue to impact lives in meaningful ways. We realise that the use of technologically driven initiatives is part of modern day and we would like to reach students in their comfort zones, which is why we encourage students to submit their essays digitally.”

She pointed out that the submissions will be evaluated by judges who are professors from reputable Nigerian Universities. The professors will select the top 12 finalists who will take home consolation prizes including personal computers. These 12 finalists will also write another supervised essay where the top three winners will be announced at the grand finale to be held in November at UBA’s head office in Lagos, Nigeria.

The National Essay Competition has been rolled out in other African countries where UBA operates, in order to open-up the opportunity for more African children to benefit from the educational grants.

UBA Foundation embodies the UBA Group’s CSR objectives and seeks to impact positively on societies through several laudable projects and initiatives. The Foundation through its Education pillar has donated hundreds of thousands of books to students across Africa under the ‘Read Africa’ initiative aimed at encouraging and promoting the reading culture in African youths. Its National Essay Competition has also afforded the opportunity to hundreds of students to improve their lives through higher education.

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