March 04, 2008	Tuesday	Safar 25, 1429

KARACHI, March 3: At the conclusion of the Karachi Regional Championships, three teams, comprising nine students of seven schools, have emerged to compete with teams from Lahore and Islamabad at the national championship of the Fourth Dawn in Education Spelling Bee contest.

In the nine to 11 years age-group, Mariam Jabir of the Head Start Junior School topped the list and Arsalan Afzal of the Bay View High School’s middle school branch became the first runner-up and Marium Iqbal of the Defence American School of Mrs Haque’s branch the second runner-up.

In the 12 to 14 years group, Samrah Jamil and Hira Jalil of the City School’s North Nazimabad branch emerged as champion and second runner-up, respectively, and Amna Ahmed of the Generations School the first runner-up.

In the 15 to 17 years age group, Aaltan Ahmad and Arman Sayani of the Karachi Grammar School emerged as Karachi national champion and first runner-up, respectively, and Sumai Saleem of the Beaconhouse School System’s PECHS branch the second runner-up.

The Karachi Regional Championship opened with 72 children from 24 schools, including the Roots School from Hyderabad, competing for places on the national rounds.

In the 15-17 age group, schools from other parts of Sindh were represented by Public School, Hyderabad, Sarghodian Spirit Trust School of Rashidabad in Tando Allahyar and Victor Public School of Jacobabad.

This competition is being held in collaboration with Wall’s Ice-cream.

The judges for the competition were from The Oxford University Press.

For the Karachi Regionals, the judges were Zenobia Master of Dawn and Samuel Ray of the Oxford University Press.