Report from Accra: The new Science Quiz

On Monday, Primetime, the organizers of the National Science Quiz, organized a seminar in Accra on the National Science & Maths Quiz for school representatives from around the country.

They announced that the 2006 Quiz will be held earlier than usual because of the change in SSS and JSS academic year calendars. They said the date will not be known until December or early January.

They further announced that the number of participating schools is being increased from 32 to 48.

It was revealed that the so-called small schools have grumbled about the seeding of the schools in the competition, "which causes the less endowed schools to get eliminated early." These schools want all schools to be lumped together and considered equal, with the possibility of a defending champion and the returning runner-up facing each other in the first round, which is senseless. For example, instead of seeding the beest teams of the 2005 competition in the 2006 competition, the "smaller schools" are saying that the seeding system should be eliminated so that St. Peters and OWASS (this year's finalists) could by possibility face each other in the first round.

Prempeh's representative, Mr. Francis Kupo, was outraged. He stated that for a school to win the title, it must be able to beat any of the big schools, and the small schools are not at a disadvantage. He used 2001, the year Prempeh lost to Apam secondary as an example of cases where small schools have excelled. The fact that Apam was able to eliminate Prempeh means that the system is fair.

Prof. Kupo received a big applause from representatives of the other schools, who felt that the complaints of the small schools were silly at best.

If Ghana is to win a world cup soccer, the country must be ready to defeat teams like Germany, Argentina, Brazil, England and Holland on the way to world championship glory.

Ghanaians can't ask FIFA to discard the seeding system and place us in a group with less accomplished football nations just to aid us in getting further in the tourney.

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