Nigeria’s foremost public speaking institute, School of Eloquence is set to hold the fourth edition of its competition between seven Lagos-based public secondary schools on November 26.
This public speaking contest holding at the school’s premises, 36B, Royal Palm Drive, Osborne Phase 2 Estate, Ikoyi, Lagos, would feature students of senior secondary schools in the state.
The topic is “The Nigerian youths and the ‘JAPA’ syndrome – What is the way forward?”
The registrar, Patience Essien, said the school’s founder and Dean, Ubong Essien, was inspired to start the competition through its “Catching Them Young” corporate social responsibility initiative after discovering that teaching the younger generation communication skills would help improve society.
According to her, the School of Eloquence alums visit public schools to create awareness about eloquence at an early age, teach them the art of public speaking and let them know how important it is. At the end of the year, the students then converge to display what they have learned and how well they can perform in the art of public speaking during the competition.
“The Eloquence Cup is a public speaking challenge between students in government-owned secondary schools. The students are assigned a topic of general interest upon which they are to speak before an audience which includes, students and teachers of competing schools, alums from the School of Eloquence, the School’s Board members and other members of the society.
“The winning school takes the trophy, and we also have prizes for the participating individual students that excel in the competition, from laptops to tablets to cash. The maiden edition was won by King’s College in 2017, while Queens College won the last edition in 2021.”
Contestants will be drawn from Queens College (defending champions), Kings College, Dairy Farm Senior Secondary School, Agege;St. Gregory’s College; State Senior High School, Agege; CMS Grammar School and St. Finbarr’s College, Yaba.
The School of Eloquence was established in 2006 by West Africa’s first Certified Speaking Professional, Ubong Essien, to teach Nigerians effective public speaking and good presentation skills.