Petroleum Fund awards poets ahead of anniversary
‘MATHATO SEBOKA
MASERU – Petroleum Fund held an award giving ceremony for top three students from ‘Mabathoana High School, St Stephen’s Diocesan High School and Lesotho High School who participated in a poem competition on Tuesday this week.
The following students were awarded, the first prize was received by Rorisang Monaheng from `Mabathoana High School, second prize went to Mehrnaz Tarr from Lesotho High School while Busisiwe Nhlapho from St Stephen’s Diocesan High School walked away with the third prize.
Monaheng received M3 000 and a galaxy tablet, Tarr got M2 000 and a galaxy tablet and Nhlapho got M1 000 and a galaxy tablet.
Petroleum Fund had commissioned a poem for recitation at the fund’s 20th Anniversary to be observed today and the objective of the Wednesday event was to adjudicate and observe the best poem recital whose outcomes for Petroleum Fund’s main event.
Petroleum Fund’s Interim Chief Executive Officer, Advocate ‘Makananelo Kome, said that the award giving celebration is to celebrate the future leaders who took their time to create poems.
“We are here to celebrate our future leaders for taking a call to help us celebrate our 20th anniversary in style. I want to thank the ministry of Education for also taking our call to help us team up the students so that they can recite such beautiful poems,” Kome said. She went on to show gratitude to the students who sacrificed their time to write the poems.
“To you the future leaders, we appreciate the effort, the sacrifices you put to create these poems, it was not part of your daily work but you did it anyway,” Kome said.
Lebohang Lihanela, Inspector English from the Ministry of Education said that only seven schools in Maseru out of the 30 secondary schools offering Literature in English participated in the competition resulting in 15 scripts being evaluated to determine the district’s winner.
She added that Mohale’s Hoek had just three schools offering Literature in English; nine scripts were evaluated to select the best poem for the district.
“Since only Maseru and Mohale’s Hoek participated in the competition, both districts were asked to submit their two best poems. These top four poems were evaluated to determine the three winning poems for the national level,” Lihanela said.
She showed that the adjudication of the poem was done looking at few categories.
“We looked at the form of poem, a poem should have a particular structure and every poem has to have a tittle. Second category is poetic language looking at the nature of writing, we wanted learners to show outstanding use of figurative language or rich vocabulary to create vivid images,” Lihanela explained.
She showed that the third category was content, this where the knowledge of the subject matter came in. Knowledge of the Petroleum Fund was paramount.
“The highest marks for all the categories were four marks and the lowest one mark,” she added.
The students showed gratitude to Petroleum Fund for the opportunity they got.
Monaheng from ‘Mabathoana High school showed that he was really grateful for the opportunity.
“I am truly grateful that as a boy I managed to get into this competition, I really hope more coming competitions will also involve boys as well,” Monaheng said.
Nhlapho said that she was truly grateful to her teachers who always support them.
“We are truly grateful to the support we get from our teachers; they are really our strength and support system,” Nhlapho.
Tarr said that she is really grateful to her teachers.
“I am grateful to my teachers for guiding me and I want to thank myself for putting the effort.”
