Eight primary school students in the Northern Division including two from Rabi received the Honourable Minister’s Award of Excellence for the National Green Olympiad competition at Labasa College on Friday.

Permanent Secretary for Education, Heritage and Arts Iowane Tiko commended the recipients that apart from their routine learning and studying they also found time to plan, research and study for the test.

“This initiative was launched on May 9, this year to test the students’ environment knowledge,” Mr Tiko said.

“The test focuses on some of the challenging issues faced today like climate change, renewable energy, food security, biodiversity, conservation, disaster risk reduction and sustainability,” he said.

“This venture equips our children with relevant knowledge and provides them with the opportunity to actively engage in activities to address such challenges.

“The competition culminating in the awards was attempted online by students boosting their skills on online assessment.

69,939 primary school students from Years Five to Year Eight participated in the nationwide competition. 6450 students from 213 primary schools took part in level one while 7117 students from 234 primary schools took part in level two.

The National Green Olympiad targeted primary aged students at two levels.  Level one for Year Five and Year Six and level two for Year Seven and Year Eight. It was open to all primary schools and was held on May 17 and May 18.

The Curriculum Advisory Services in collaboration with the Corporate Services Section provided the quiz questions which were aligned with the current primary school curriculum of Fiji.

Out of this, a total of 69 students achieved 100 per cent, a significant attainment for an assessment.

The awardees are: Level 1 – Vishika Nath (Vunicuicui Sanatan Dharm Primary School), Yash Chand (Bulileka Sanatan Dharm Primary School). Level II – Ashrita Chand (Wainikoro Public School), Astha Chaudhary (Tabia Sanatan Dharm Primary School), Boboia John and Peter Kibannang  (Tabiang Primary School), Beverly Moceituba (Holy Family Primary School) and Shahil Prasad (Daku Primary School).