JHS student wins Microsoft Office Specialist Championship (April 9, 2015) Spread

A 15-year-old pupil of the Mary Mother of Good Counsel School in Accra, Samantha-Michelle Naa Korkoi Kanyi, has emerged the winner of this year’s National Microsoft Office Specialist Championship.  

Samantha shrugged off stiff competition from more than 1,480 students to win the national championship which qualifies her and two other students, Jedidiah Koomson of the St Augustine’s College and Esther Yeboah of  the SOS Hermann Gmeiner International School  in Tema, to represent Ghana at this year’s Microsoft Office Specialist World Championship in Dallas in the United States of America (USA) from August 9-12, 2015.

Among the 78 schools that participated in the competition are the Ghana International School, the Mfantsipim School, the Mfantsiman Institute of Technology, Wesley Girls’ High School and the St Augustine’s College.      

Five other students of the Mary Mother of Good Counsel School also passed the international Microsoft Office Specialist examination which requires participants to obtain at least 700 marks out of 1,000. 

Samantha obtained 985 marks, which is a record in Ghana, to emerge the overall winner. 

 

Her achievement makes her the youngest winner in the history of the competition in Ghana which started last year.

Apart from the ticket to represent Ghana, she received a laptop, stationery, Microsoft branded T-shirts and a certificate. 

Open to people aged 13 to 22, participants are expected to master Microsoft Office 2010 and 2013 programmes — Word, Excel and Power Point — and use them to answer questions during the championship. 

At a ceremony to reward participants from the Mary Mother of Good Counsel School in Accra yesterday, the principal consultant of Skills Matrix, organisers of the programme, Mr Godwin Botchway, described Samantha as “exceptionally quick”. 

In the MOS Championship, speed and accuracy are everything. Samantha ran through her work, finishing it off in 25 minutes — half the time allotted for the competition.  

Mr Botchway said Samantha’s achievement was worth celebrating because she justified the organiser’s decision to include junior high school students in the competition this year. 

“We decided to add JHS to the competition this year and, interestingly, the overall winner emerged from the JHS,” he said

Moment of honour 

On her day of glory and honour, Samantha, who is also the Girls’ Prefect of the Mary Mother of Good Counsel School, could not hold her smiles as her fellow students applauded her achievement in the packed auditorium of the Mary Mother of Good Counsel Catholic Church. 

The Member of Parliament (MP) for Ayawaso West Wuogon, Mr Emmanuel K. Agyarko, urged students of the school to use their schoolmate’s achievement as motivation to work hard.

In an interview with the Daily Graphic, a visibly excited Samantha said, “The feeling is as surreal as a dream. It is like a dream.”

Asked what gave her such exceptional Information and Communications Technology (ICT) skills, she said she had always loved typing.

The Headmistress of the school, Rev. Sr Mary Patricia Asante, commended Samantha for her outstanding performance.