By Maria Famakinwa
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The wife of Ondo State Governor, Arabinrin Betty Anyanwu -Akeredolu has stressed the importance of spelling and reading in improving the standard of education especially English language in the country.

    She made this observation  at the 6th edition of the Trans-Regional Grand Contest of UNESCO endorsed Spell and Thrill held at Hilltop Hall of Federal University of Technology Akure(FUTA) where primary and secondary schools students from eight states which includes Ondo, Ekiti, Osun, Ogun, Lagos, Oyo, Kogi and Kwara gathered for spell and Thrill competition.

    Mrs Akeredolu who commended the organizers for putting up such a good initiative said, ” I am here because I always identity with what young people are doing. I promote spellings and reading even in my community by encouraging students in my community for the same programme. This idea will encourage healthy competition among the youth and keep them off any vices. Competition such as this will also help to raise  the standard of education.”

   While congratulating the organisers of the programme, she assured them of her support and wish the participants best of luck as she reminded them that in any competition there will always be a winner.

    The initiator of the programme, Mr Ayotunde Ikulamberu in his welcome address explained that the programme was established to help students improve in their spellings and pronunciations and improve the standard of education generally. “It is a spelling competition for primary and secondary schools which started since 2012 and have been recording success since then.

   “The programme aim to drill students to a breaking point and get rewarded for their brilliant performances. With this programme, we hope to give schoolarship to best student up to higher institution as way of encouraging other participants.”

    Ikulamberu who further described the programme as a mentorship one disclosed that it has been helping students in their internal and external examinations because the idea of Spell and Thrill now helps students to devote more time to their studies. “The programme was put together to reward academic diligence courtesy of Aare Afe Babalola. In the primary category, The winner will be rewarded with #200,000, the second position will get #100,000 and the third position will get #80,000. In the Secondary category, the first position will get #250,000, the second position will get #150,000 and the third position will get #100,000.