Alitia Sovunidakua of Adi Cakobau School and Alumita Nasilasila of Sangam Sangam Sadhu Kuppuswamy Memorial College College have both won the top prizes for the 2017 Essay Writing Competition for senior secondary school students.

The competition is done with the New Zealand High Commission in partnership with the Fiji Association in Auckland.

Deputy headgirl, Alumita, was emotional when her name was announced to receive her award.

She could not hold back her tears of joy when she acknowledged her parents for their continuous support.

“My teachers had inspired me to take part in this competition. I had put my best effort into this essay and one of the things I wrote about was bee farming,” Alumita said.

Alitia, who is from Naitasiri, was very excited with her achievement and she acknowledged her English teacher who had motivated her to take part in the essay competition.

“My essay topic was globalisation and the effects of culture negatively and positively and the ways that we could maintain culture,” said Alitia

A total of 79 schools took part in the submission of 441 essays with 12 students collecting rewards during the prize-giving ceremony at the New Zealand High Commissioner Mark Ramsden’s residence yesterday.

Mr Ramsden congratulated the winners for submitting high standard and well-researched essays.

Satendra Singh, who has been marking these essays the past nine years, said it was pleasing to read how students were able to identify special issues within the given topics.

The other ten winners were from Suva, Labasa, Sigatoka, Naitasiri, Nadi, Ba, Nausori and Lautoka. They were presented with certificates, gift vouchers, iPads and tablets.

The topic for the 2017 essay competition was ‘The effects of globalisation and the Fiji-New Zealand bilateral relationship.

10 more students will receive highly commended prizes. Each student gets a certificate and a $50 gift voucher.