In 2022, Musharraf Ali Farooqi (founder and CEO of Storykit) was searching online for information about Urdu spelling bees in Pakistan, but found none. To his surprise, he found no public English spelling bees either. He discovered that there used to be a Dawn spelling bee, which was discontinued during the Covid pandemic, and never restarted. This sparked the idea of launching a spelling bee for school children, in both English and Urdu, across Pakistan.
It took a team of hard-working, resourceful individuals to give life to that concept and turn the dream of Pakistan Spelling Bee into a reality. With no precedents to follow and no experience running a spelling bee, they had to rely on good interpersonal and project management skills, attention to detail, and a lot of man hours to plan the project.
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Farooqi and his team devised a registration system through schools, created a format for the competition which included the number of rounds and stages of the competition, made a detailed list of rules for participants, recruited and trained pronouncers and volunteers for competition days, and found schools willing to host the regional and national events.
Finally, a year after the idea was conceived, Pakistan Spelling Bee was officially launched in Learning Alliance, Lahore, on 22nd October 2023. A total of 6,000+ students participated in the four regional championships in Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and Islamabad, with the top scorers participating in the National championships held in Islamabad. The competitions were held simultaneously in both English and Urdu. For the Urdu spelling bee Farooqi and his team of linguists formalized a set of spelling rules, something which had never been done.
The first PSB was a great success, and the Storykit team, with the hard-won experience of that first multi-faceted event, knew they could further streamline the process to make it easier for schools and teams to enroll, and bring it to students in more cities.
In 2024, PSB grew to accommodate twelve thousand students from eight regions across Pakistan. This time, the regional championships were held in Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad, Gilgit, Faisalabad, Peshawar, Multan and Gujranwala, while the National Championship was held in Lahore.
Because of the large number of participants, multiple events were held in all the major cities, to allow more schools the opportunity to participate. A major innovation in PSB 2024 was the holding of Regional Championships, where participants won gold, silver and bronze medals at a regional level and progressed to the National Championship. Another change was the presence of school supervisors within the competition rooms, ensuring an atmosphere of transparency and fair play for all participants. Additionally, the final rounds were streamed live on Facebook where possible, allowing parents and the general public the opportunity to observe the competition's final round and outcomes for all grades.
One of the highlights of PSB 2024 was the organization of a Regional Championship in Gilgit Baltistan in collaboration with Aga Khan Education Services. It was conducted by Haris Ashfaq, the Storykit project-lead for Gilgit. He managed the logistics and teacher trainings, and oversaw all aspects of both the English and Urdu championships, held over a single day. His resourcefulness and hard work were appreciated by the AKES school administration, all the participants, and the entire Storykit team.
This year, Storykit has introduced further innovations to improve the experience of PSB, from registration to the final competition:
- Individuals and home schoolers can now take part in PSB
- Students can participate in both English and Urdu competitions
- A new, abridged registration form (eliminating the previously required 'Registration Pack')
- A new pronunciation platform which will ensure standardized pronunciation of all words.
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