Wesley Grammar Senior High School (SHS) has emerged winners of the 2019 edition of the Model Dam contest, a civil engineering challenge organised by Knight Piesold (KP) Consulting.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, St Margaret Mary and La Presbyterian SHSs placed second, third and fourth respectively.

The competition, dubbed: “KP Consulting Schools Initiative Programme (SIP)", seeks to heighten the interest of science students attending public SHSs in civil engineering.

The event, which was held in Accra on theme: “Dams: A hands-on Experience”, challenged students of the science departments of the four participating SHSs to design a model dam for construction.

The participants were first given a briefing to develop a sample of a model dam as part of preparations towards the grand finale.

The team from Wesley Grammar SHS, beat three other teams to win a 40-inch plasma television, a wireless printer and A4 paper rims as its prize.

For their prizes, St Thomas Aquinas, St Margaret Mary and La Presbyterian SHS respectively received a 32-inch plasma television, a wireless printer and A4 paper rims; a 32-inch plasma television, a printer and A4 paper rims; and a 32-inch plasma television respectively.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), Mr Jeffrey Coffin, Regional Manager for KP Consulting, West Africa, said every year, the designs get more creative and the thought process gets a little more complex.

He lauded the skills showed by the participating schools, saying, these schools had done their research, and was impressed with what they have learnt over a short period of time.

Mr Coffin, who was also the Lead Judge for the contest, told GNA that, among the criteria for scoring the teams was creativity, efficiency, team performance and presentations, however, the focus was on how the dams could store water as well as its cost.

He said in an interaction with some students, a lady mentioned that working in a team was one of the challenges she encountered, adding that “so this is part of the training, and part of what we do as professionals; building teams to operate efficiently, and solving problems.

Mr Robert Boamah, Chairman of the SIP Planning Committee, said this year’s contest registered new participants, as the project was in line with the company’s vision of providing skills training for students.

He said the government's free SHS programme would go a long way to ensure an equal opportunity for all children to go to school.

Mr Boamah said for every country to develop, there was a need to move into more scientific way of doing things, as such, to be able to reach this goal, it was important to encourage people to pursue science and science-related courses.

He advised students to take their studies serious, adding that “for the ladies, I am urging you to be encouraged by the young female engineers you are seeing around.  As students, you can achieve your dreams and it’s all about determination”.

Mr Benoni Owusu Ansah, a Senior Civil Engineer at KP Consulting, also underscored the need for the youth to develop attitudes to pursue applied sciences and implement them in society.

He said science was the bedrock of development in all the advanced countries, therefore, the idea was to inculcate in this young generation, the enthusiasm to take up science at a higher level.

“We desire to whet up their interest into the study of applied sciences, but because we are an engineering firm, our focus has been on the applications of civil engineering, so they will be able to build dams on their own”.