Primetime reacts to Prempeh College’s 2023 NSMQ ‘riddle’ protest
Organizer for the National Science and Mathematics Quiz (NSMQ), Primite Limited following Prempeh College’s protest over their answer to the riddle in the semi-final stage of the competition says it supports the ruling of the Quiz Mistress.
Primetime’s comment comes after the school said their principle of superposition answer to the NSMQ riddle is the same as the principle of linear superposition and so their contestant’s answer of the principle of superposition deserves full marks.
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The Kumasi-based Senior High School in its protest statement shared with AcademicWeek.com also called on the producer of the Science and Mathematics competition to overturn the semi-final stage NSMQ results in their favour.
But reacting to Prempeh College objection, Primetime said “While we greatly appreciate Prempeh College’s keen interest and passion for the NSMQ, we draw the line at insinuations of bias and attempts to favour some schools
We place premium on fairness to all participating Senior High Schools, which is why we allow protests from schools, to ensure that there is fairness in the adjudication of contests.
Where a school’s protest is found to have merit, the error is rectified and the appropriate marks are awarded to them. Indeed, we are known to pause contests, so as to resolve a protest that has been made by a school
In this instance, the Prempeh team’s protest was reviewed by the Physics consultant, who then explained the concepts to the team, which the team accepted. Consequently, this turnaround and insinuation that a deliberate injustice has been carried out against Prempeh College is rather surprising.
The ability to protest a question, answer, or mode of adjudication is not a new one and we would like Prempeh College to use the procedure described in the NSMQ Rules 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. 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. It would be very unfortunate for anyone to dismiss the great effort and investment of time and money that the contestants and trainers put into preparing their teams to excel at this competition, by insinuating that Primetime is biased towards some schools and manipulates contests in their favour.
A five-time champion knows, from experience, the challenges preparing for and triumphing over all other participants present to the team and how much hard work goes on behind the scenes and on stage, to produce excellent results at each edition of the NSMQ.”