The Group Managing Director of Zenith Bank Plc, Mr. Peter Amangbo, has said that the bank will continue to support the Microsoft Office Specialist World Championship among school children in Nigeria.

Speaking during the 2017 ReadManna Awards held in Lagos on Wednesday, Amangbo praised the ReadManna Empowerment Initiative for successfully organising the annual event for 16 years with the objective of encouraging the use of Microsoft Office tools in Nigerian schools.

Describing the awards as a celebration of excellence, the Zenith GMD, who was represented at the event by a senior member of the bank’s staff, said, “I use this opportunity to acknowledge the excellent work Mrs. Edna Agusto is doing and I am confident the achievements of the participating children will further encourage her to break more records and establish more frontiers.

“To this end, Zenith Bank is committed to sponsoring an expanded Nigerian competition involving more schools, as well as supporting the Nigerian contingent to the 2018 Microsoft World Championship.

“Our objective is to see how we can support the initiative to involve more children so as to fast-track the penetration and growth of ICT in Nigeria.”

Also, acknowledging the feat achieved by a pupil of the Childville School, Miss Katherine Eta, who emerged second runner-up in the 2017 MOS World Championship held in the United States, Amangbo noted, “When Katherine Eta emerged the third place winner in the keenly contested 2017 Microsoft Office Specialist World Championship, held in the USA, from a rigorous competition that attracted more than 560,000 candidates from 122 countries, it elicited hope and confidence for the future of our children and country.”

He pledged that Zenith Bank would continue to engage in partnerships that would also positively impact on Nigerians in the short, medium and long terms.

“Let me congratulate the children that have won various awards and also encourage the potential winners in the hope that it would soon be their turn on the stage,” he said.

While reading the report of the 2017 MOS championship in Nigeria, the Managing Director of ReadManna, Mrs. Edna Agusto, expressed her appreciation to the management of Zenith Bank for its decision to grow the competition, aimed at promoting proficiency in basic computer literacy, in the country.

She said the 2017 edition of the competition, which was thrown open to pupils between the ages of 13 and 20 enrolled in any academic institution, took place over a period of seven months, from August 1, 2016 to April 30, 2017, with about 882 entries from 20 secondary schools across four states and the Federal Capital Territory.