Superiority is simply synonymous with excellence. While excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well, superiority is doing things a little better than anybody else can do them. Thus, when you are superior, you excel. And, according to Aristotle, excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intensions, sincere efforts and intellectual execution. It represents the wise choice of many alternatives – choice, not chance, determines one’s destiny. Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better.
Suffice it to say that, for about seven years now, Anambra has repeatedly come first in local, regional, national and international academic contests in primary, secondary and tertiary education.
The recent of the Anambra exploit in education is students from Queen of the Rosary College (QRC), Onitsha, who won the Global Prize Award at the just-concluded Diamond Challenge Global Summit, University of Delaware. The QRC students defeated over five thousand other teams from around the world to win the highly coveted top prize.
The seven students, who did the state proud, are Chisom Iwuno, Amara Okechukwu, Chidimma Okoye, Mmesoma Nnaji, Sandra Mgbafulu Stephanie Anozie, and Chinyere Iheator. The trailblazing students and their mentors made an app with the name “Queens Foris Labs”. The app is a virtual learning space that allows students to conduct science experiments and understand science concepts better.
The students won the one thousand, five hundred dollars cash prize among other prizes, including further mentorship for the prize winners and sundry opportunities.
No doubt, behind every excellent performance, there is always an invisible hand midwifing the operations. Hence, an elated Governor Willie Obiano has promised to, as usual, honour the excelling Anambra students. Akpokuedike global will, alongside the accolades to the QRC students, equally honour the Anambra State students who excelled in the last two years of the JAMB examinations.
Also due for honour are the Anambra State students who triumphed in the competition organized by the Federal Ministry of Science & Technology for students in all the 774 Local Government Areas in the country. Remarkably, the Anambra candidates took the first position in 2019, while another one took the second position and they personally met with President Mohammadu Buhari, who gave them one million naira and N750,000 respectively plus university scholarship awards up to the doctoral level.
It would be recalled that Anambra took the coveted first position in the 2020 examination into the highly competitive Federal Government School for Gifted Children, Abuja. The State also came tops in the 2020 National Common Entrance Examination results released by the National Examinations Council (NECO).
While the government and people of Anambra were still basking in the euphoria of that exploit, news filtered in again that two universities in the state – Nnamdi Azikiwe University and Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University – were among the three tops in another academic competition at Lagos.
Remarkably, Chijioke Osakwe from Umuoji in Idemili North scored an ‘A1’ in each of the nine subjects he sat in the 2020 West African School Certificate examination. Two indigenes of Anambra State – Ego Maduafokwa from Ihiala, and David Nwobi from Njikoka LGA, scored the highest marks in the 2020 Joint Admissions and Matriculation Examination (JME).
Favour Obiajulu Okeke from Eziowelle in Idemmili North LGA took the first position in the competition organized by the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology for outstanding science secondary school students throughout the country last year. Nelson Uwakwe from British Spring College, Awka took the second position in the 2020 competition.
The same year, Government Technical College, Onitsha took the third position in the national Junior Engineers, Technicians and Scientists (JETS) Expo in Abuja, which President Muhammadu Buhari attended in person.
Hitherto, five students of Regina Pacis Model Secondary School, Onitsha, represented Nigeria and Africa at the World Technovation Challenge in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, USA and won the coveted Gold Medal, while Saint John’s Science and Technical College, Alor won the third position in the International Festival of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) held in Tunisia in 2019 and many more.
Every right thinking person would want to know the secret of all these successes. An American writer, Orison Swatt, sums it thus, “Doing Common Things Uncommonly Well”. Akpokuedike, Daalu!
WRITTEN BY DR. NNAMDI NWADIOGBU
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