SUBANG JAYA, July 27 — The message of unity conveyed through her essay won a student from Kolej Yayasan Saad in Melaka one of the top prizes in the 2019 Sunway-Oxbridge Essay Competition.
Arianna Saiful’s entry was adjudged the best in the Form One to Form Three category, gifting her a cash prize of RM5,000 and Sunway bursary valued at RM26,000, among others.
Hers was among the over 2,700 submissions received in this year’s competition with the theme centred on the transformation of education.
“My essay touches on how I envision Malaysia to be one of unity where everybody understands each other perfectly,” Arianna, 15, told reporters at the prize-giving ceremony for the winners at Sunway University, here, today.
She was among 26 young writers who did well in the competition which offered prizes worth RM230,000.
The prizes were presented to the winners by the Education Ministry’s English Language Teaching Centre director Farah Mardhy Aman, Sunway University and Sunway Education Group chief executive officer Dr Elizabeth Lee, and Oxford and Cambridge Society Malaysia executive committee member and past president Margaret Hall.
Lee said candidates from 382 schools took part in the preliminary round of online submissions, with the total number of submissions hitting 2,772 this year.
“Since the launch of the competition in 2014, the total number of entries has reached 16,512,” she said.
The competition also saw winners being picked in the Form Four and Form Five category along with 10 consolation prizes in each category. — Bernama
