Sixty-five students from 18 schools took part in the zonal Scrabble tournament at the Heritage School on Saturday. This was part of the National School Scrabble Championship 2022, organized by Collins, the learning division of HarperCollins Publishers India, in collaboration with Mattel and the Scrabble Association of India for students under 18.
The championship includes three online qualifiers, eight zonal tournaments spread across eight cities and the grand finale. Qualifiers of last month's preliminary rounds participated in the zonal competition.
The event was inaugurated by Seema Saproo, principal, The Heritage School in the presence of Dr Manisha Sharma, tournament director and president of Scrabble Association of Delhi; Swati Gupta, secretary, Scrabble Association of Delhi; Rageshree Niyogi, head of marketing, Collins Learning India; and Sutapa Basu, product manager (east), Collins Learning India.
“During the pandemic, when students were confined to their homes and education took the virtual route, games like Scrabble helped them break the monotony and engaged them in meaningful ways. It was great to see them participate, hailing and learning from each other,” said Niyogi.
After the initial three rounds, top 20 students participated in five rounds of duplicate Scrabble. The winners from east zone were Ishika Hazra from MP Birla High School, Souryaditya Banerjee from Heritage Academy Howrah, Ariba Firdaus from Jibreel International School and Saqsham Tiwari from MP Birla High School. They will now participate at the national level in Delhi in November.