Bandar Seri Begawan – With the memory of being in 11th place at the Quality and Equity in Education (QEE) Project Competition for Government Schools last year, Anthony Abell College, finally has a cause for celebration.

The Seria college managed to come in first place ahead of 18 other schools that took part in this year's three-day competition.

Asked what made this year different from the last, Cikgu Asmah Awg Tengah, Deputy Academic Principal, said that participating projects were more this year than the year before.

This year's competition carries the theme: The use of ICT in education, where teachers are expected to resourcefully work and show their creativity in employing ICT into the classroom.

To "encourage the use of ICT among young generations", Anthony Abell College's project entitled "I Love Science" showed the effective use of ICT enriched lessons. One of the ways this was done was through sending homework assignments through email and consecutively receiving the assignments through email as well.

The project, headed by the ICT Facilitator and Head of Science Department, Gan Ai Fong, took three months to complete and succeeded in achieving the competition's objectives by having participants display their ICT skills.

The project had good outcome with a significant improvement in the students' performance in GCE `0' Level results.

The principal of AnthonyAbell College, Dyg Rahagi bte Deli, admitted that students were not very inclined to study and therefore their main purpose of participating in the competition is to "promote science and make it more interesting."

She added that as an administrator, she does not hesitate to provide and upgrade the facilities of the school and tend to the needs of the teachers.

Cikgu Asmah Awg Tengah said that the QEE Project Competition was a good step for schools. She believed that ICT would be employed into every school within five to 10 years. "A school cannot go without it," she added.

Anthony Abell College is now eligible to showcase their winning project in the upcoming SEAMEC Conference to be held in Bali in March.

When asked by The Brunei Times on what made the school a champion, Awang Ismail Seruddin, the competition's head jury, said.

"They had identified their problems through survey and simply developed from there," he added. "This was done not just for the students only but it covered the teachers and parents of the students to get outstanding results."

The second place went to Pengiran Anak Puteri Rashidah Saadatul Bolkiah Secondary School, while Rimba secondary school came third.

Ismail, an officer at the Cocurriculum Development Department, hoped that what the participants had learned from the competition would be useful for them after they leave school.

He also talked on the limited number of teachers to conduct the competition, citing it as a constraint in addition to lack of facilities.

He also said that upon completions, the projects would be compiled and shown to other schools in the country.

Prizes were given by Dr Mahali Momin, Acting Director General of Education at the Ministry of Education.

The contest, held at the Institute Tahfiz al-Quran Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah, was organised by the Department of Schools, Ministry of Education.

Participating projects were evaluated based on the participants' ability to use and manipulate ICT in achieving the competition's objectives. 

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