The Department of Basic Education (DBE) has launched a writing contest for South African students in high school with a rather large prize that will be split between three winners.

Rather strangely the prize money is listed in US Dollars in the announcement, which is a pool of $1 000. At the time of writing this converts to around R15 376.

First place will get $500 (~R7 688), second gets $300 (~R4 613) and third will receive $200 (~R3 075).

The contest tasks students with writing a 1 200 word essay with the topic of “how can SADC boost productive capacities in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic?”.

To save everyone a Google the SADC is the Southern African Development Community, a multinational organisation focused on improving many African countries across various parameters such as peace, economic growth, poverty elimination and more.

Entries for the contest close on 14th April so there’s still a lot of time to enter, with entries directed to be sent to following email addresses: maluleke.l[at]dbe[dot]gov[dot]za, rakumaku.z[at]dbe[dot]gov[dot]za and sekgota.m[at]dbe[dot]gov[dot]za.

Finally, while creativity is obviously the crux of this contest, entrants are given the below guide for certain questions about the main topic, how many words should be allocated to each and the points associated to them:

• “From your understanding, how did COVID-19 spread so fast and how is it different from other pandemics that you have witnessed in the past, and what measures were put in place to contain its spread and mitigate its impact. (240 words, 20 points]
• Discuss in length the effects and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in different sectors of the economy, (e.g. mining, tourism, manufacturing, agriculture, health. migration, cross border movement of goods and trade) and state the measures needed to support these sectors. (240 words, 20 points)
• How is bolstering productive capacities an effective measure to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly, for the region to continue growing its economy, to support inclusive, sustainable, and industrial transformation. (240 words, 20 points)
• Discuss the long term solutions and interventions which can be used as a benchmark in dealing with future threats and outbreaks similar to the COVIDI9 pandemic? (240 words, 20 points)
• Discuss the lessons you learnt through the period of the COVID-19 pandemic taking into consideration challenges and successes that were experienced. (240 words, 20 points)”