Whizz-kids from Jabez off to Barcelona

A three-partner team of learners of Jabez Christian Academy emerged among the category winners in the Limpopo round of the World Scholar’s Cup that recently took place in the city.
Grade 10’s Makgomo Mahlatjie and Tshino Bongwe, and Ricardo Erasmus, in Grade 11, were invited to attend the Global Round of the competition that will be hosted in Barcelona, Melbourne and Kuala Lumpur later this year. “Even before taking part in the Limpopo round, we were determined to win and already decided that we want to go to Barcelona,” Ricardo said and added that he would make time to visit some sights in Italy that including the Colosseum and places of interest in Rome because the city has such a lot of culture.
This year’s theme for the competition is ‘An entangled world’ and during the Limpopo round the team members took part in debates with interesting topics that included ‘Diplomacy is ineffective without the threat of war’ and ‘Should eyewitness testimony be allowed in court’. They also took part in a creative writing session where they had 10 minutes to prepare, 40 minutes to write and 10 minutes to compare their input with their team mates.
A written scholar’s challenge with multiple answers added 120 points to each member’s end result and added to the excitement of the competition. The final challenge was the scholar’s board with multiple choice answers where contestants used an electronic clicker to record their answers.
Ricardo was the overall top scoring member of the school’s seven teams that took part, Tshino scored the most medals and Makgomo was the best performing learner in writing, arts and the special area of
Human Relations. Ricardo was also appointed as World Scholar’s Cup Ambassador for his school.
In the 2017 competition, Ricardo was also the highest scorer in his school and won silver medals in Art, Science and Debating, while Tshino won a silver Da Vinci. “We didn’t take last year’s competition too seriously, but this year we were ready to go,” Tshino said.
“All that remains for us now, is to raise enough money to pay for our travel, accommodation and sundry expenses and we will approach businesspeople and friends of the school to contribute in this regard because our hosts are not paying for anything,” Ricardo stated.
The competition is organised by World Scholar’s Cup, an international foundation that was founded in 2007 and that is based in Los Angeles, California.
If the team excel at the Global Round, they will be invited to take part in the Tournament of Champions at the Yale University in the United States of America towards the end of the year.

Story & photo: BARRY VILJOEN
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