By Yiep Joseph
The South Sudan National Bureau of Standards (SSNBS) has officially launched and opened submissions for the ARSO Essay Competition 2025/2026.
As the annual initiative is being hosted by the African Organization for Standardization (ARSO), the SSNBS will coordinate the competition at the national level.
Addressing media during the launching, Kuol Ayom, Acting Director General of Planning, Research, and Statistics, who represented the Executive Director of SSNBS, declared the launch.
“Today here we are sitting as a national committee for the ARSO Essay Competition 2025/2026; today we are here to officially launch the 13th continental essay competition,” Ayom declared.
He added that the competition is meant to empower students to explore the vital role of standards in trade, development, and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
Ayom disclosed that the competition is under the theme “The Role of Harmonized Standards in Reducing Technical Barriers to Trade and Promoting Fair and Just Trade within Intra-African and Global Trade.”
He expressed that the competition is open to all the students to submit their essays, citing that it is vital as it creates more awareness.
Being the second competition, Ayom added that last year South Sudan participated and took the sixth positions in Africa.
According to him, the competition is open to all students at universities and higher learning institutions below the age of 35 years.
Ayom outlined several objectives of the competition, including promotion of awareness of the standards and quality culture among the students and encouraging innovative thinking on standards and trade facilitation, among others.
He appealed to the students to turn in for the competition and submit their essay.
Ayom revealed that the best students at the national level will represent South Sudan at the continental level.
According to him, the deadline for the submission of the essay is 30th January 2026.
Tony Ngalamu, an associate professor at the University of Juba who represented the national committee for the ARSO Essay Competition 2025/2026, expressed that the competition justifies that South Sudan students have the capacity to develop perfect and impactful essays.
He added that competing at the continental level places South Sudan on stage, citing that its strength can easily be known.
“The essay competition is important because it puts the country on stage. Imagine we were competing for the first time last year and we were the sixth, so it tells the continent that there is potential and there are skills for writing an essay in South Sudan,” he emphasized.
At businesses, Ngalamu stated that the initiative encourages the learners or students to join the world of entrepreneurship.
“It helps students to know what standards are and what standards are for because at the end of the day we need our learners to be entrepreneurs, and for them to be entrepreneurs, they need to understand regular businesses,” he said.
He expressed that the committee remain committed to ensuring that the competition is successfully conducted in order to meet its objectives.
According to the organizers, the best three will be awarded at national level and later at continental level should they go through the competition.