It's that time of the year again - when eight teams battle it out to take home the National High Schools Quiz trophy as well as fantastic prizes.
The final takes place on 19 September 2019 at the IIE's Varsity College Sandton campus where this year's National High School Quiz winner will walk away with R20 000 for their school, R5 000 for each team member and teacher, a MECER tablet for each team member, winners title, trophy, medals and certificates.
The runner up team will receive R10 000 for their school, R2 500 for each team member and teacher, a MECER tablet for each team member, medals and certificates.
How it works
A total of 285 teams with four pupils in each team - that's 1140 children altogether - participated in weekly quiz rounds in their region. Winners of the local high school quiz events progressed to the Regional Quiz Finals, with the top two teams from each region then qualifying for the National High School Quiz with IIE Varsity College.
The questions in the local and regional quiz rounds were based on content published in Independent Media's leading newspaper titles: the Daily News, Pretoria News, The Star and Cape Argus.
For the National High School Quiz, questions will be based on content specially chosen from the IOL website, and will cover the following categories: current affairs, sport, business, politics and entertainment. Teams will answer 10 questions across the five categroeis
On September 19 the eight teams will face off at IIE's Varsity College Sandton campus where they will answer 10 questions across the five categories. The team that answers the most questions correctly will be crowned the winner of the National High Schools Quiz.
Participants
The Cape Town teams taking part in the final are South Peninsula High School
and Maitland High School
, after South Peninsula won the Cape Argus High Schools Quiz for the seventh time while former winners Maitland High School came second.
Maitland High learners shared that the process has been hard, as during one of the quizzes a team member had experienced a panic attack but what keeps them going is knowing that they have each other’s support.
“We’ve been through a lot as a team,” Ande Kwezi added.
“We keep telling each other to breathe and ‘don’t worry, it’s going to be okay’. Even if one of us falls back, we are going to be there to carry each other through - it’s teamwork,” said Constance Chimwaza.
In KwaZulu-Natal, the Daily News High Schools Quiz required a double-tiebreaker to determine the winner and runners-up, with Orient Islamic
triumphing in the end. Second place winners Crescent Girls
will be joining their fellow KZN pupils in the National High Schools Quiz.
Orient teacher Rashida Asmal said: “We’re elated to be going to Sandton."
Learner Ameerah Desai said: “We’re happy to have achieved what we set out to do. We hope to ace Sandton.”
Crescent Girls’ teacher Usha Assaram said they were excited to be in the finals. “The questions were quite difficult, but the hard work by the pupils paid off.”
Pretoria Chinese School Team 1
and Pretoria Boys High School Team 1
came first and second respectively in the regional final of the Pretoria News High School Quiz.
Pretoria Chinese School won with 33 points, narrowly edging out Boys High with 31 points. These are the same two teams which represented the Pretoria News in the 2018 National final of the quiz.
The final two spots will be filled by Veritas College
from Springs who were crowned Joburg regional champions in The Star High Schools Quiz sponsored by IIE Varsity College.
Veritas won the regional title of the competition for the second year in a row, with Liberty Community School
from Bramley taking a very close runner-up position.
Remo Venturi, 16, from Veritas told The Star that he was surprised that his team had won again.
“It’s cool to know that the team from last year is completely different to this year and we were still able to pull ourselves together,” he said.
Atang Mkgata, 16, also from Veritas, added that she was proud of her team for winning.
“I’m very proud of our team and our coach for preparing us and we’re on holiday. We’ve been working this entire holiday and it’s good to know that our hard work has paid off,” she said.
Find out more about the National High Schools Quiz 2019 here.