Being competitive means striving to be better than others in an active environment. It can mean possession of a strong desire to be more successful than others.

As a way of preparing learners to face the world outside school, today, different schools have taken the initiative to encourage their students to embrace the spirit of competition in their everyday life, but most especially in academics. To enable students embrace competitiveness, schools introduce educative activities such as debates, maths club competitions, spelling competitions and standardised tests. Teachers often use team-based competitions to make academic material more interesting and engaging, thus encouraging learners to become more creative and innovative in their work.

In doing so, some schools have established rewards and other incentives for the best competitive students in class and extra-curricular activities. Eventually, this has encouraged students to work hard, improve concentration in class and passion for school work.

Competition plays a role in motivating students to perform and excel and offer a lot more reward than just the winning prize. Generally, school competitions offer a chance for participants to gain substantial experience, showcase skills, analyse and evaluate outcomes and uncover personal aptitude.

To students, competitions encourage them to adopt innovative techniques and develop their ideas and skills.

"Being competitive has enabled us to have a positive attitude towards hard work and school. Today every student has the desire to win and excel over than others, and this eventually has paved a way for us as learners to be passionate and open-minded in our everyday life,” says Christian Muneza, a 13-year-old pupil at Ecole George Fox de Kagarama.