By Mohalenyane Phakela
MASERU — The first ever Primary School National Spelling Bee competition was held at Girl Guides Centre on Saturday.
The competition was planned by pageant organiser Limakatso Makutle and local beauty queens, working together with teachers from different schools.
“The reason behind the competition is to instil the correct language use in children at an early age,” Makutle said. “This is due to the need to reverse the ‘sms language’ that has corrupted the correct spelling of words.
“During the period that I have been organising beauty pageants, I have observed that contestants encounter problems when they have to answer questions from judges in English as they fail to express themselves. It is through competitions of this nature that we can rectify that.
“Besides, English is one of the official languages in Lesotho and most of the careers our youth wish to pursue require them to be competent in both written and spoken English.”
Up to 14 schools took part in Saturday’s competition which was sponsored by Principal Secretary of Police, Refiloe Matekane, in her personal capacity.
The competition was intense as the students sought to ensure their schools were well-represented. Maseru Preparatory School’s Kekeletso Khetsi, 10, beat St James Primary’s Phomolo Makoatle, 12, in the finals after managing to spell all the 40 words given by the judges.
Students from the winning schools were awarded educational hampers, medals, trophies and certificates of merit while their teachers cheered.
“Our dream was to have every district represented in this competition, but due to limited funds, we only had a few schools,” Makutle said.
