Tertiary Business Sense Challenge-UCC tops them all

The maiden edition of a week-long inter-tertiary business quiz, spearheaded by the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL) and christened: Tertiary Business Sense Challenge (TBSC) was climaxed last Friday, with the University of Cape Coast (UCC) emerging the ultimate winner.

The school slugged it out with Wisconsin International University, which secured the first runner-up position after a 41-30 scoreline at the grand final stage.

The University of Development Studies (UDS) and the University of Ghana Business School (UGBS) consoled themselves with the second and third runners-up positions respectively.

With what began as a mere display of intellectual prowess among the 12 participating schools, the keenly contested business challenge sought to tease out the understanding of students in the areas of business, marketing, accounting and finance, mathematics and some knowledge from the contents of the GRAPHIC BUSINESS newspaper.

The 12 participating schools included: University of Cape Coast (UCC), Wisconsin International University, University of Development Studies (UDS), University of Ghana Business School (UGBS), Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA).  

The others were the Central University College (CUC), Methodist University College of Ghana, University of Education, Winneba (UEW), African University College of Communications (AUCC), Ghana Technology University College and the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA).

Opening contest

In the opening contest on Monday, February 18, KNUST beat its counterpart, GTUC, by scoring 53 points as against 17 points from the other side.

After what many described as a powerful opener, the competition crawled gradually into the quarter-final stages, with GTUC, Wisconsin, GIMPA and MUCG exiting.

This left the remaining schools to battle it out to the quarter-final qualifiers and eventually, the semi-finals.

Wisconsin however, pulled through miraculously in the third quarter-final contest, when the school beat University of Ghana Business School (UGBS) to have another chance to prove its worth in the finals.

The University of Cape Coast also meandered through the competition by upsetting three of its counterparts to gain the ultimate bragging rights of being the Best Business School in Ghana with a 50-24 final scoreline to draw the curtain down on the entire competition.

Prizes

The winners walked away with a trophy, cash prizes, certificates, laptops, life insurances and scholarship packages as well as other souvenirs from sponsors of the competition.

 All other competing schools also received certificates and other consolation prizes.

The Quiz Master, Mr Alhassan Trawule, commended all participating schools for exhibiting resilience throughout the competition and urged them not to relent in their efforts to study harder in their chosen business fields.

 He also thanked the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL), management of the participating schools and sponsors for their roles in ensuring the success of the contest.

The Managing Director of the GCGL, Mr Ato Afful, in an interview after the contest, said the TBSC initiative was on the verge of identifying a new breed of business professional and therefore in the right direction.

 He also hoped for an expansion to more tertiary institutions in Ghana in subsequent contests.

The contest

The GCGL came up with the TBSC to increase the knowledge base of students and improve the practicality of what they study in school.

The TBSC was one of the off-page experiences created by the company to ensure that the GRAPHIC BUSINESS fully engaged with its audience.

Held on the theme: “Developing Business Minds – The Hot Seat”, the challenge brought together students from tertiary business schools all over the country to exhibit their knowledge of the business field.

The maiden edition was, thus, focused on business schools interested in showcasing the quality of their faculties, tuition centres and facilities, knowledge capacity of their students and quality of their output.

 Sponsors

The challenge was sponsored by the Ministry of Business Development and eight other corporate institutions.

The institutions included the Accra Brewery Ltd (ABL), BIC and the British Council.

 The rest were Passion Air, GLICO, the Fidelity Bank, the Institute of Chartered Accountants Ghana (ICAG) and the Chartered Institute of Marketing. YFM and Media General’s TV3 were media partners.