You are a Cabinet Secretary granted two minutes to speak about Covid-19 planning with President Uhuru Kenyatta – what do you say?
Earlier this month on April 9, the closing day of Term 1, our Kenya Form 1 and 2 students competed in a pitch competition to propose their solutions to the Covid-19 pandemic. This competition was a culmination of their research project on Covid-19 which students completed at home after our campuses closed in March. Throughout the project, students studied the impacts of Covid-19 on global health and economies, learning about the history of pandemics, the science behind viruses and their spread, and the role of the media in helping (or hurting) public awareness and perceptions. This background research then prepared them to propose solutions to the crisis through their presidential pitches.
Click on the link above to watch the competition.
In the first stage of the competition, over 70 students posted their 2-minute video pitches on a learning platform called FlipGrid. Their teachers then selected the finalists from each homeroom, and from the homeroom finalists, school leaders and deans from each school selected the final Cabinet Secretaries from each school. These 17 school finalists were then invited to deliver their pitches live to a panel of judges from our Nova Pioneer executive team on Zoom, with the event live-streamed to YouTube. Judges then gave positive and constructive feedback to finalists on their pitches (at Nova Pioneer, we call these Glows and Grows).
As you can imagine, there were some challenges to live-streaming a digital event like this. Maintaining a consistent internet connection proved to be troublesome for some finalists. Luckily, we had their earlier video submissions on file and were able to play these in place of their live pitches. In all though, the event went smoothly with the judges able to see pitches from all finalists.
Contestants were judged based on the organization of their pitch, their use of supporting evidence in their arguments, their word choice and grammar, and their delivery. The winners in each category were:
- CS of Trade: Ibrahim Ahmed, Tatu Boys
- CS of Labour: Nicole Rono, Eldoret Girls
- CS of Transport: Samuel Birech, Eldoret Boys
- CS of Education: Rachel Munyi, Tatu Girls
- CS of Health: Abigail Achola, Tatu Girls
The overall winning school was Eldoret Boys, followed by Tatu Girls in second place, Tatu Boys in third place, and Eldoret Girls in fourth place.
While there could only be one winner in each category, all of our students delivered compelling, well-researched, factually accurate, and thoughtfully articulated solutions to the Covid-19 pandemic, demonstrating our culture principles of High Expectations and Solutions First. You can watch their pitches on our YouTube page.
Given the success of this event, we are currently exploring ways we can have more collaborative competitions like this across our Nova Pioneer schools, including our primary schools and our schools in South Africa!
Written by Kelsey Keech ( Global Director, Learning & Instructional Design)
