Capital Markets Secondary Schools Challenge

As part of its public education programme, CMA in partnership with the British Council, with sponsorship from GTZ/ Sida FSD, Kenya Airways and other organisations, initiated the Secondary Schools Challenge as an education tool for the Advanced Level (A-Level) students on financial matters. The Schools Challenge is also expected to capture a wider adult audience such as parents, teachers as well as the interested general public.

The Capital Markets Secondary Schools Challenge is organised as a two-stage competition, involving A-Level students from secondary schools, across the country.

The first round of the Challenge is an essay writing competition followed by a televised quiz competition.

The essay question for the 2006 Challenge was;

“What are the causes of poverty in Uganda? To what extent can capital markets development contribute to poverty alleviation in Uganda?”

Each participating school was requested to form a team of two A’Level students, who would handwrite an essay of not more than 2500 word on the above question.

In this year’s Challenge, of the 90 schools invited to participate, over 50% responded with well researched essays. The essays were marked by a team of two experienced independent teachers and CMA staff and the schools with the best 20 essays were chosen to compete in the second and final part of the Challenge; the quiz competition.

This year, there also was a 33% increase in the participating schools as compared to last year and 15% of the essays came from upcountry schools as far as Fort Portal, Lira, Gulu, Mbarara and Tororo.

The top 20 schools that participated in the 2006 quiz competition are;

The prizes for this year’s Challenge included:

• Publishing the best essay in the newspapers with the writers’ profiles.
• Funds for the purchase of shares of a listed company or units in CIS for the team that wrote the best essay, and the top three teams in the quiz competition.
• Each of the participating students in the quiz competition;

• Received certificates of participation.
• Received tokens such as gift sets, baseball caps and T-shirts.
• Together with their patron teachers were conducted on a tour of the sponsoring organizations and hosted to a luncheon with the management of partnering organizations and other stakeholders.

To reward teachers’ efforts and support, this year’s Challenge introduced new prizes like funds for the two patron teachers of the second and third best teams to purchase shares or units in CISs.

The students also participated in an investment game organized by Stanbic Investment Management Services, in which the top three students received prizes and all the participating students received certificates.

The grand prize was a one-day visit to the Nairobi Stock Exchange and other stakeholders in Nairobi’s capital markets industry, for the winning team and its patron teacher.

For the Challenge, Ian Paul Nyombi and Rodney Bamusedde of St. Henry’s College Kitovu emerged overall winners, followed closely by Stephen Ochan and Mathew Muggaga of Namilyango College and Ben Nga’ru and Ann Wambui of Ntinda View College.

Paul Nyombi and Rodney Bamusedde along with their patron teacher Ssali Ally traveled to Nairobi on 26 th July 2006 for a two day tour of the capital markets industry in Nairobi.

CMA would like to extend its appreciation to all the sponsors of the Challeng especially