KARACHI, Jan 22: Students belonging to educational institutions of Lahore outshined their counterparts from other cities by winning majority of the medals in the 16-event International School Education Olympiad (ISEO), which concluded on Sunday night.

The City Naib Nazim, Nasreen Jalil, was the chief guest at the closing ceremony of the five-day Olympiad organized by the Karachi High School. The yearly Olympiad, which was held for the seventh time this year, was participated largely by students from private schools with English as their medium of instruction.

In her concluding remarks, Nasreen, who also gave away medals to the winning individuals and teams, praised the conduct of the multi-faceted competition in the private sector and urged the organizers to hold some events for government schools students as well.

“I really feel that more government schools should be encouraged to participate. With the new leadership in the city, we hope to narrow the divisions in society and want that students of government schools should also be given the same opportunities that are available to a few,” she said.

Coming on to the prevailing law and order situation and peace, she said the government had created an environment, which had encouraged countries to send their teams to play in Karachi and that was why major sports events were held successfully during the last three months in the city.

She said it was wonderful to see the enthusiasm of young people and the eagerness with which they had participated. She congratulated each and every child who had taken part in the Olympiad, calling each one of them a winner.

Responding to the remarks given by the naib nazim, the chairperson of the Olympiad and principal of Karachi High School, Parveen Kassim, said she had also been approached by students as well for accommodating Urdu medium schools in the programme. She said she was pleased to announce that a category for Urdu debate would be added next time in the Olympiad.

The Director of British Council Karachi, Marcus Gilbert, also gave away medals and shields to successful contestants. Nighat Mehboob, Head Mistress KHS also spoke.

The organizers kept secret the names of winners in secret till the last moment due to which the probable position holders from Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Quetta had to sit in nervous anticipation for the results.

However, song performances by students at intervals during the ceremony provided the students, teachers and guests with enthralling moments.

Competitions for the ISEO 2006 included model display, quiz, cyber fair, theatre, teachers’ quiz, chess, vocals, group discussion, elocution, arts and craft, film making, photography and debates.

The Aitchison College Lahore clinched three trophies after securing first positions in different team and individual events, while Beacon House School (Gulshan), Karachi Grammar School, Salamat ICAS and University of South Asia got first position in two events each.

The PECHS Girls School, Lahore Grammar School, SouthShore School, DHA College for Women and Lahore Grammar School Johar Town Boys got first positions in one event each.

The judges who evaluated various competitions of the Olympiad included personalities like Sajid Hassan, Sadia Khan, Talat Hussain, Nayyara Noor, Arshad Mahmood, Farooq Ahmed, Baber Sheikh, Hasan Zaidi, Maheen Zia, Arsalaan Khan, Sameer, Shamyl Khuhro, Tapu Javeri, Noor Jehan Meclai, Fehmina S Hussain, M Wasif Nisar, Zenobia Qadir, Junaid Hameed, M Omer Khan, M Waqar, Sumayya Usmani, Azhar Jamil, Marcus Gilbert, Zara Hussain Shahid, Frederick P Nazareth, Andrew Scolt and Barry O’ Brian.

According to details given by the organizers, the top three position holders in each of the events were as follows. Math and Science Quizzes; 1st, Lahore Grammar School Johar Town, 2nd, St Patrick’s High School and 3rd, The City School, PAF Chapter.

Quiz; 1st, Beacon House School System Cambridge Gulshan, 2nd, Agha Khan Higher Secondary School and 3rd, Generation School.

Cyber Fair; 1st, PECHS Girls School, 2nd, Salamat ICAS and 3rd, Lady Bird Grammar School.

Model Display; 1st, Aitchison College Lahore and 2nd, SouthShore School.

Theatre; 1st, Lahore Grammar School, 2nd, Salamat ICAS and 3rd, PECHS School.

Teachers’ Quiz; 1st, SouthShore School, 2nd, the Lyceum School and 3rd, Aitchison College Lahore.

Chess; 1st, Karachi Grammar School (Rahil Esmail), 2nd, Beacon House System Jubilee Campus (Jaiser Nizamani) and 3rd, St Patrick’s High School (Saad Ghaus Qureshi).

Vocals; 1st, Aitchison College Lahore (Hammad Ali Seyal), 2nd, Chapter and Verse School Wing B (Farwa Abbas) and 3rd, Lady Bird Grammar School (Wajeeha Latif).

Arts Junior; 1st, Salamat ICAS (Junaid Bin Adnan), 2nd, Saifya Boys High School (Huzefa Saifuddin) and 3rd, Beacon House School System of Cambridge Gulshan (Arif Khan).

Arts Senior; 1st, Beacon House School System Cambridge Gulshan (Hammad Zuberi), 2nd, Lahore Grammar School Johar Town (Usman Shahid) and 3rd, Aitchison College Lahore (Mohammad Ali Hayat Khan).

Vocals Senior; 1st, DHA College for Women (Tehreem Muneeba), 2nd, Wilderness School (Asad Ali) and 3rd, Keynesian Institute of Management Sciences (Qasim Jaffar).

Debates; 1st, Karachi Grammar School (Momin Rauf), 2nd, Aitchison College Lahore (Zeeshan Haider) and 3rd, Froebel Education (Fahim Rafiq).

Film Making; 1st, University of South Asia, 2nd, Karachi Grammar School and 3rd, SouthShore School.

Photography; 1st, University of South Asia (Arghawan Javaid), 2nd, The Lyceum School (Mikail Soomro) and 3rd, Aitchison College Lahore (Mustafa Jamil).

Elocution; 1st, Salamat ICAS (Muhammad Faizan Shahid), 2nd, Aitchison College Lahore (Shayan Yar Khan) and 3rd, PECHS Girls School (Ayesha Salman).

Group Discussion; 1st, Aitchison College Lahore (Saad Butt), 2nd, Lahore Grammar Boys Johar Town (Omer Aftab) and 3rd, Mensa Pakistan (Sara Haroon Khan).

The first position holders in the various competitions of the ISEO 2006 included Lahore Grammar School for Theatre, the PECHS Girls School for cyber fair, Aitchison College Lahore for vocals junior, model display and group discussion, the DHA College for Women for vocals senior, Karachi Grammar School for chess, University of South Asia for film making and photography, Salamat ICAS Lahore for elocution, SouthShore School for teachers’ quiz, Salamat ICAS Lahore for art junior, Beacon House School System Gulshan Branch for art senior and Lahore Grammar School Johar Town for maths and science quizzes.

Chairperson ISEO Parveen Kassim thanked all participating students for making the Olympiad a memorable success.