UGC, AICTE organise national-level crossword contest; Top 3 teams to get cash prizes

NEW DELHI: The University Grants Commission (UGC) and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) are organizing a national-level crossword contest called National Inter-college Crossword Contest 2022 (NICE-22) in a hybrid online-offline mode for students of higher education. The contest will be conducted between March and August 2022 in three stages.

According to a statement from AICTE, the top three teams at the national round will receive cash prizes, and all participants will receive certificates. The game is expected to help in developing cognitive skills such as logical reasoning, problem-solving, decision making among others.

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“Such an activity in colleges and technical institutes will be a shot in the arm of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 which calls for a vibrant campus life and a holistic education ecosystem promoting multi-disciplinary talent among students,” said the statement from AICTE.

The first stage of the contest is a student-institutional round, which will be will be open to all students from colleges and institutes to play individually, conducted in an online mode. This will continue for four successive Sundays starting from April 3, 2022. Once the fourth Sunday round concludes on April 24, 2022, the top two participants from each institute will form the institutions’ teams for the offline rounds.

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The second stage is the zonal rounds in offline mode in five zones – north, south, west, east and northeast. The final stage is the national round in New Delhi in offline mode. There will also be a practice round on April 2 to familiarize the participants with the contest format.

The contest is conducted by a civil society organisation called Extra-C which promotes knowledge-based co-curricular activities. Interested students can register themselves at nice.crypticsingh.com for free.