A petition filed by Prempeh College challenging the semifinal results of the 2023 National Science and Maths Quiz (NSMQ) between Prempeh, Opoku Ware and Pope Johns Senior High School has been thrown out.
Opoku Ware beat Prempeh and Pope Johns to go through to the grand finale with Presec and Achimota School.
Prempeh College, however, raised issues with the semifinal results, which kicked them out of the competition and took to social media to challenge the results.
In dismissing the petition, the management of Primetime, organisers of the National Science and Maths Quiz defended the ruling of the Quiz Mistress and said Prempeh College was not “cheated” as was claimed on social media.
In Prempeh’s petition dated October 19, 2023 and posted on social media, Prempeh College called for a review, acceptance and an overturn of the results of the contest in relation to an answer to a riddle question in the fifth round of the #NSMQ2023 competition.
Prempeh College ended the contest with 36 points below Opoku Ware’s 38 points.
Response to Prempeh College
In a press statement responding to Prempeh College’s protest of the results, the managing director of Primetime, Nana Akua Mensa-Bonsu affirmed the ruling of the Quiz Mistress in the said contest.
Results
According to the MD of PrimeTime, comments made by the physics consultant, Dr Amos Kuditcher and the Quiz Mistress, Professor Elsie Effah Kaufmann, with respect to the review of the answer to the riddle explained that the clues in the riddle were intended to give a prompt and a specific response.
“The protest from Prempeh College concerns a riddle for which clues were given that point to the linear superposition principle. In interactions with the complainants on their protest, no reference to exponential superposition was made.”
“Instead, a nonlinear superposition relevant to intensity was given as a counter example, which seemed to satisfy the protesters. Indeed, there are situations where electric fields participate in nonlinear processes in which combining two fields produces a field that does not equal the sum of the fields, the associated phenomena constituting a vibrant branch of Physics”.
These comments led the management to affirm the ruling of the Quiz Mistress with no bias whatsoever.
Conduct
The MD further stated that they placed premium on fairness to all participating schools, to ensure that there is fairness in the adjudication of contests.
Thus, she encouraged Prempeh College to use the required procedures to address their grievances, rather than to resort to a smear campaign on social media.
“Sullying the reputation of the competition is not an action one takes when one is truly gracious in defeat; disagreeing, but accepting the outcome in good faith is graciousness in defeat,” she said.
“We would like to reiterate that Primetime has no interest whatsoever, in which school wins, or loses a contest, or, ultimately, the championship trophy. We place a very high premium on the integrity of the programme and so go to great lengths, too numerous to recount here, to protect it”
Below is a copy of the response from Primetime:
-Prempeh-Colleges-petition-thrown-out-1.pdf
Content by: K Mensah
