Registration for participation in the PZCussons Chemistry Challenge (PZCCC) is now open to SS2 pupils attending public and private secondary schools in Lagos State.
Schools are required to register three pupils for the competition – and this time around, it is mandatory that one of them be a girl.
Organisers say this is to encourage girls to improve in the subject. There has been no girl among the winners of the last three editions.
The competition was kicked off during a stakeholders’ forum held on Tuesday, last week at the PZ Cussons office in Ilupeju, Lagos.
Following closure of the registration early February, next year, the pupils would write the first stage Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ) examination to determine the best 100 that would proceed to the second stage.
The second stage, which would also feature MCQs, would produce 24 winners who would undergo the Practical- Only at third stage of the competition. The top six from the third stage would feature in the quiz and practical final scheduled to hold in the second week of April, 2017.
Overall winner of the competition would get N700,000, a laptop, gold medal and trophy; the teacher would get N100,000, and the school N100,000 of laboratory equipment. The first runner up would get N450,000, a laptop, while the teacher gets N80,000, and he school, N80,000 laboratory equipment. The second runner up will get N100,000 less than the first; and the school and teacher get N10,000 less. The third runner up would get N250,000 and a laptop; and N60,000 for his/her teacher and school.
The competition will also feature a two-stage teachers’ teaser, which would be done online.
Chairman of the Advisory board for the competition, Prof Oladele Osibanjo, attested to the transparency of the grading of the PZ Cussons Chemistry Challenge (PZCCC).
Osibanjo said the board overseas the process from the selection of questions to grading of scripts in a transparent manner.
“We involve a lot of people. It is a process. We involve university people who teach 100 Level Chemistry to set questions in all areas of chemistry, and we invite secondary chemistry teachers too. We provide quality assurance to ensure questions are high class. The grading process has no human manipulation because computers do the marking. Everything is done above board,” he said.
Executive Director, Corporate Services, Mrs Yomi Ifaturoti, said the firm, through the PZCussons Foundation, decided to intervene in chemistry to promote interest in the subject which encompasses what its business is all about.
“The foundation came to being in 2007 and we focused on five areas including education, water. We discovered that there was gap – that children were shifting from sciences. We decided to focus on Chemistry because that is what we do. The Chemistry Challenge is something we are really proud of,” she said.
Mrs Ifaturoti expressed hope that winners of the competition would one day work for PZCussons.
“After they win, the four finalists come to our office and spend a month. We give them a task and they would do a project. The plan is that after their education, we hope they come back and if the opportunity exists, we absorb them,” she said.
Director PZCussons Consumer, Christos Gouras, said there were plans to make the competition national in future.
“The plan is that we will expand in the next four years to other regions of the country. We hope in a few years it will become a national competition,” he said.
Mrs Hannah Oyebanjo of Redwood Consulting, which coordinates the competition on behalf of the foundation, praised PZCussons for keeping faith with the competition in the past four years.
Principal, Abibat Mogaji Senior Secondary School, Agege, Mr Taofeek Adeosun whose school produced the first and second runners up last year, said his school would work harder to win this year again.
