The Northern zone challenge of the Energy Commission Senior High Schools Renewable Energy Challenge has seen Dabokpa Technical Institute, a Tamale school that represented the Northern Region, crowned champions.

The zonal competition that took place at the Engineering Department of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, on Saturday was being competed by eight schools.

Each represented one of the eight regions in the Northern Zone. The regions classified under the northern zone include Bono, Ahafo, Savanna, Bono East, Northern, North East, Upper West, and Upper East regions.

Securing 82.17%, the Dabokpa Technical Institute became first, followed by the St. James Seminary SHS, which also garnered 79.33%. Ola Girls SHS won third place by securing 76%.

From the fourth (4th) to the eighth (8th) position were the Wa SHS, Notredam Seminary SHS, Nkoranza Technical Senior High School, Ndewura Jakpa SHS, and the Walewale S.H.T.S.

The year's program was themed "Application of Renewable Energy Technologies in Solving Land Degradation and Water Pollution."

Competing students were tasked with identifying renewable energy technologies to solve the aforementioned challenges that are bedevilling the various communities in Ghana.

They did the presentations by showcasing the various techniques and equipment they were going to use in resolving those challenges. All participating schools delivered excellently, according to the panel of judges.

Speaking to the media after the challenge, Emelia Osei Opare, who is the national director of STEM education in Ghana, expressed overwhelming joy over the performance of the students.

She added that she was very excited to always see the students' excellent improvement every year.

According to her, the challenge, since its inception, has gone a long way toward making students great researchers and problem solvers.

She also added that there were plans to introduce these challenges at the basic levels, an initiative she believes will broaden the students' scope of learning to the highest point.

On his part, Julius Nkansah Nyarko, senior manager for the renewable energy regulations and programs coordinator, said the first three schools from the northern zone have automatically qualified for the national competition that is scheduled for October 8, 2024, at the Accra International Conference Center.

He, however, disclosed that authorities were waiting for the best three performing schools from the Southern Zone so that they would be added to the six finalists for the national competition.

He also expressed excitement over the great improvement in quality projects initiated by the students, adding that it was good that education and training kept improving.

The programs coordinator further revealed that apart from the prizes given to the winning schools, plans were far advanced to ensure that these excellent projects instituted by the various schools were going to be put into use for commercial purposes and to benefit the schools.

According to him, partners of the program, such as the GES, had been advised to exhibit the projects at the regional and district levels, where local companies can get a gist of the projects and collaborate with them on how they can make use of them.

Mr. Kofi Agyarko, director of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and climate change at the Energy Commission, said the commission was committed to seeing most of the challenges resolved locally, hence the push for such challenges.

He, however, expressed joy over how the students have been able to put together projects that seek to resolve land degradation and pollution in the country.

He said that looking at the excellent projects put up by the students, there was hope that the CSIR was going to research many of these beautiful projects so that they may soon become very useful, especially when it comes to solving water pollution and land degradation challenges.

The winning students from the Dabokpa Technical Institute said they dream of making sure their project becomes very useful for the benefit of the country.

Sakaria Joshua, one of the winning students, speaking on behalf of the school, said they came up with the project in order to solve the many challenges confronting the various communities due to water pollution and land degradation.

According to him, it was very worrying that people were dying in the various communities as a result of the many water pollution incidents that occurred as a result of galamsey and many other human activities.

He, however, revealed that the only challenge they had in their quest to bring out the project was how to get the right materials, adding that they finally selected charcoal, sand, etc. to make polluting water clean.

They thanked the organizers of the program and called for sponsorship to enable them to solve the two challenges that they are passionate about.

Meanwhile, each of the participating schools received a cash prize of Gh¢1000 in addition to other juicy items. The winning school, however, received extra juicy awards.