Miss Deborah Lawrence, a 15-year-old student of the Good Shepherd College, Meiran, Lagos, has emerged the winner of the 2018 Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE) Essay Competition.
Lawrence scored 84 points to emerge winner out of the 2000 entries received across the country.
Miss Oluwalonoayo Ashiru, a student of the Corona College, Lagos, won the second position with 80 points, while Mr Charles Dominic, a student of GEC Comprehensive College came third with 79 points.
Lawrence received N500,000 university education scholarship and N250,000 equity investment as winner prize.
The second and third winners received N400,000 education fund and N200,000 equity fund and N300,000 education Fund and N150,000 equity fund, respectively.
Mr Oscar Onyema, Chief Executive Officer, Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE), at a ceremony in Friday in Lagos, said that financial literacy was of great value for all segments of the population and should not be limited to a certain age group.
He said the benefits of a financially literate society are universal and its positive impact could be felt in the promotion of better livelihoods, economic growth, financial systems and poverty reduction.
He stressed the need to build a platform that would help awaken the interest of youths and students to learn and appreciate economic concepts, financial literacy and the significance of the capital market to the economy.
“The NSE Essay Competition, now in its 18th year, is the NSE’s flagship financial literacy and inclusion initiative.
“The chief goal of the competition is “Building a Financially Savvy Generation”, by imbuing a culture of wealth creation amongst our youths.
“The competition serves as a platform for future leaders like you on key challenges relating to financial literacy, and provides us the opportunity to feel the pulse of the spread of financial inclusion in Nigeria.
“The youth segment is often recognised as a priority target for financial education because the philosophy of catching them young remains a wise one.
“This year, the NSE Essay Competition topic asked students to discuss “how technology can promote financial literacy and encourage investment habit among youths”.
“The goal is to get future leaders to think about how to adopt technology as a veritable tool for building a financially savvy generation,” he said.
Onyeama expressed belief that the topic would sow the seeds that would prepare this generation for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Onyema said that the number of entries received in 2018 showed that the right topic was selected, as over 20,000 essay entries was received from all over the country.
He said this represented a 50 per cent growth from the number of essays received in 2017.
“The winners today thought about winning and worked towards it; my encouragement to everyone here today is to never stop dreaming and working towards their goals, whatever hurdles you encounter are for jumping over,” he said.
Commenting, Mr Segun Lawrence, father of the winner, said he was happy at his daughter’s success.
Lawrence said on the sideline of the programme that hard work and dedication would always be rewarded.
He urged parents to instill discipline and good morals into their children to bring out the best in them. (NAN)
