Durban- ON Monday, nine KwaZulu-Natal schools will do battle for two spots in the National High Schools Quiz Finals on September 19.
The battleground for the Daily News Regional Finals is Varsity College Westville and the nine in the regional finals are Eden College, Orient Islamic School, Crescent Girls’ High School, Newcastle School High Team 1 and Team 2, Linpark High School,
Seatides Combined School, Verulam Secondary School and Mountview Secondary School.
The High Schools Quiz is sponsored by Independent Media’s Daily News, Pretoria News, The Star and Cape Argus newspaper titles in partnership with the Independent Institute of Education’s (IIE) Varsity College.
The quiz is an annual competition that tests the knowledge of high school pupils on a variety of topics covered in the respective regional newspapers.
The topics are: politics, sports, entertainment, business and current affairs.
The newspapers each hosted regional quizzes, and the top two teams from each region will participate in the Finals.
The winning team in the Daily News Regional Finals receives R20 000 for their school, plus R2 000 for each team member, including the coach. The runners-up get R10 000 for their school and R1 000 each for all team members.
The top two teams in each region get an all expenses paid trip to the national finals at the IIE’s Varsity College Sandton Campus and compete for the R50000 grand prize as well as R5 000 individual cash prizes.
In KZN, schools from three zones participated in the regional quiz: greater Durban area; Pietermaritzburg, Ladysmith and Greytown; and
Durban North.
Teacher Meloshnee Pillay from Mountview Secondary School said its pupils were very excited about the Daily News Regional Finals.
“This competition has changed not only the participants’ interaction with the written media, but also the attitudes of their peers as they watch them engaging with the newspaper in preparation for the competition,” Pillay said.
She congratulated the Daily News quiz team on the excellent initiative that is promoting the national call to improve reading in the
country.
Teacher Rashida Asmal from Orient Islamic School said the studying was going well and the pupils were working very hard.
“They are preparing questions based on each article and they are answering them,” Asmal said.