Chaguanas school wins UTC investment contest

The Chaguanas Senior Comprehensive School was named winner of Unit Trust Corporation’s (UTC) 12th annual School Investment Game at an award ceremony at the UTC’s headquarters yesterday. The five-member team beat 148 teams from 42 schools winning $5,000 cash for their school, $200 in units each and a two-month (July to August) internship at the Corpora-tion. The school was represented by nine teams, two of which were among the top three winners. Placing second was UWI Sixth Form (Tobago) team which won $3,000 and $200 in units.
 
A second team from Chaguanas Senior Comprehensive placed third, winning $2,000 and $200 in units. At the start of the game, each school was given a notion of $20,000 which they had to invest in seven forums, the Stock Market, Fixed Deposits, Savings, US and TT Money Market Funds, Growth and Income Fund and the Chaconia Fund, said Cheryl-Ann Phillips-Gonzales, UTC’s marketing officer. She explained that students had to check newspapers for the prices of the various forums every Thursday. Later on in the game, they had the chance of investing in any one of the forums which they thought would give them the highest returns. At the end of 26 weeks, the team with the highest investment on its original investment was declared winner, she added.

According to Michael Alexander, UTC’s executive director, the game was initiated as a way to increase the level of financial literacy among the students.  He added that, to date, over 6,000 students from various schools have participated in the game. Delivering the feature address at the event was consultant Barrington Thomas. He gave the students an innovative lesson on saving and investing money and also spoke on methods of becoming wealthy. He added that basic discipline in money spending and the right attitude towards money was another way to be successful. He advised them, however, that although studying to become doctors or lawyers was good, greater emphasis should be placed on becoming entrepreneurs, since that was the only way to make “multiple sums of money.”