If there’s a bee in your bonnet over spelling, then this is your cup of tea

Aina Tomas (centre) is the busiest Spelling Bee at the University of Namibia. Inga Kapendah (right), and Magritha Gontes, had to concede to Aina’s extraordinary spelling prowess, coming second and third respectively.

The University of Namibia’s Language Department hosted a spelling contest for students over the previous weekend. The idea was to find Namibia’s top spelling bee at the top three tertiary institutions, viz, UNAM, the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST), and the International University of Management (IUM).

Each of the three top spellers won a shiny floating trophy plus N$1500 for the winner, N$1000 for the runner-up and N$800 for the third spot. All students who participated received a medal and an Oxford English dictionary.

Hosting of the event was sponsored by Sanlam

The Spelling Bee competition is a challenge to help students improve their technical command of the English language by giving them some of the most difficult words to spell.

Realising that spelling is one of the biggest challenges for Namibian students who are serious about migrating from Namlish to English, the life insurer gave its support to the universities to make an impressive splash with the first-ever Spelling Bee competition.

Dr Liswami Simasiku, the Director of the UNAM Language Department, said it is important that commercial entities support academic events like the Spelling Bee competition to improve the general level of spelling and writing skills among students.

Sanlam Marketing and Communications Consultant, Dessa Simanga also encouraged the participants to understand the importance of spelling and knowing the correct application of words.

“One of our core aims through our corporate social responsibility programmes is to assist with the development of education and we believe that the Spelling Bee is an initiative that will go a long way in achieving this objective” said Simanga.