SINGAPORE - Nan Chiau Primary School and Nanyang Girls' High School are champions of this year's National Chinese Challenge.

Organised by SPH Media Trust's Chinese Media Group and Nanyang Girls' High, the competition is an annual event to promote Chinese culture and cultivate an interest in learning the language. Participants get to showcase their language abilities and interact with other Chinese-language learners.

At Saturday's event, Ms Sun Xueling, Minister of State for Education and chairman of the Committee to Promote Chinese Language Learning (CPCLL), said she was happy to see the competition remain popular despite taking place online.

She added: "The competition is a good opportunity for students to hone their Chinese skills and fall in love with their mother tongue."

In its ninth year, the competition attracted 4,258 students from 178 schools.

Pei Hwa Presbyterian Primary School and Nan Hua Primary School took the second and third places, respectively, in the primary category, while Raffles Girls' School and Hwa Chong Institution came in second and third in the secondary category.

Teams consisting of three students each were tested on their knowledge of the Chinese language. This included translation of commonly used terms from English to Chinese, pronunciation, questions on literature, current affairs and general knowledge.

In the secondary school segment, 16-year-old Jessica Lee Yu Wen from Nanyang Girls' said her team was happy it did not fall short of its own expectations, despite being busy balancing school work and the competition during the examination period.

The team attributed its success to the support from friends, teachers, and family.

This year's finals also included an improvisation segment to test the participants' skills and creativity. This was recorded and uploaded on the Facebook pages of student publications for the public to vote.

The finals were streamed live through various digital platforms, including Lianhe Zaobao's website, zbCOMMA's Facebook page, and ZBSchools.

On Saturday morning, Ms Sun also launched this year's World Book Day and Literature Under the April Sky at Hwa Chong Institution, an event aimed at instilling a culture of reading among youth.

It was the first time that CPCLL had welcomed more than 450 participants from 18 schools back on-site for an annual literary event since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

At the event, 28 secondary and pre-university students received the Chinese Language Elective Programme Best Improvement Award.

During the launch, Ms Sun said there will be two new programmes: one for secondary school students to read to primary school pupils, and the other for authors to read to secondary school students to forge a deeper understanding of their creative motivations and work.

She added: "The pandemic has given us more opportunities for reading. Although the situation may be tough, we can enrich ourselves by reading, and spreading the positive energy found in books to illuminate ourselves and others. I hope everyone here will love reading, and keep reading."