Constitution Day - Finals of Quiz and Public Speaking competitions |19 June 2019
A souvenir photograph of the occasion
Mont Fleuri primary, Beau Vallon secondary and Sals are the champions
The finals of the Constitution Day quiz and public speaking competitions have been won by the Mont Fleuri primary (public speaking), Beau Vallon secondary (quiz) and the School of Advanced Level Studies – Sals – (Quiz).
The runner-up for the public speaking competition at primary level was Baie Ste Anne.
The best chairperson as well as the best proposer were awarded to Baie Lazare primary while the award for best main speaker went to La Digue primary.
For the quiz competition at secondary level, the runner-up was Praslin and the highest scorer was Rico Antat from Beau Vallon.
For the professional centres, the runner-up was the Site (Seychelles Institute of Teacher Training) team and the best scorer was Dylan Letourdie from Sals.
These competitions have been organised by the Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development in collaboration with the National Celebrations Committee and SIDS Youth Aims Hub-Seychelles (SYAH) to commemorate the Constitution Day celebrated yesterday.
Many primary, secondary schools and professional centres took part in the preliminary events. For the finals we were able to see five primary school teams – Baie Lazare, Mont Fleuri, Perseverance, Baie Ste Anne and La Digue – talking about their rights found in the Constitution of Seychelles. At the primary level, many chose to talk about the Rights to Education and how privileged they were to be able to enjoy such a right. They were questioning the responsibility of the children as well as the parents towards the free education, we Seychellois receive.
“Just imagine if we did not have the right to education? We are privileged that a system such as ours has been designed to accompany us from crèche to University level and we have to take advantage of it. We have to make education a tool for our success” were some of the salient points made by the primary students.
The La Digue primary chose to talk about Article 39(b) of our Constitution which is the right to preserve our cultural heritage. They even performed the ‘Madilo’ song at the end.
The quizzes for both secondary and professional centres were based on the Constitution and all the teams were able to answer most of the questions asked.
“This year we have replaced the debate with the Quiz for secondary schools and professional centres. As for the primary schools category, they have competed in the public speaking competition for the second time. The aim of such activities is to provide students with the opportunity to share their opinions and views on several pertinent articles taken from our Constitution. Through these competitions, students are further developing several of the 21st century skills, namely critical thinking, reasoning, synthesising information, research, personal expression, self-direction, oral and written communication and public presentation,” noted Merida Delcy, special advisor to the minister and coordinator of the programme.
She also noted that the public speaking competition has also been initiated in order to meet one of the priority areas of the Unesco’s Global Action Programme which calls for providing the youth with a voice on issues that concern them, their community and country as a whole with the expectation that they will allow them to have a greater say in how their country is being shaped for the future.
On the same occasion, the member of the Judiciary Committee, Bernard Georges, presented copies of the simplified version of the Seychelles Constitution to the Ministry of Education.
“We are celebrating the 26th anniversary of our Constitution, and it gives me great pleasure to present 500 copies of this simplified version of our Constitution to the Ministry of Education. The Constitution is more than talks between law makers; we want everybody to understand the meaning of ‘We the People’ in simple terms and the implications of these rights on our daily lives.”
It was Sean Confait from Anse Boileau school who did the vote of thanks.
These competitions were held in a joyous atmosphere where the youth from Perseverance secondary interpreted two songs and the children from Mont Fleuri school performed two traditional dances.
The event was graced by the presence of the chairperson of the National Celebrations Committee, Macsuzy Mondon; the Minister for Education & Human Resource Development, Jeanne Simeon; Ambassador Dr Erna Athanasius; the representative of the Commonwealth Secretariat, Dr Ameena Osman; principal secretary Dr Odile de Commarmond; the director general for education, Cyril Pillay; among many high officials from the Ministry of Education as well as teachers and some parents.
