Jorhat, Jan. 17: More than 40 schoolchildren, most from Jorhat district, did Assam proud by securing positions in the top 70 in their respective categories at the Wizard National Spell Bee competition held in Calcutta recently.

Organised by the English Wizard Foundation, the competition is held all over the country through district-level coordinators on four levels - school, interschool, state and national. There are six categories for which word banks (booklets) are provided, separate ones for each level as the student goes up after passing each level.

Biswadeep Roy, national coordinator of the foundation, said he was happy that so many students represented Assam this year.

"The turnout has been very good. Many students have come from Carmel School and Maharishi Vidya Mandir in Jorhat and Maria's Public School in Guwahati. Apart from this, we have students from Vivekananda Kendra Vidyalaya and Christian High School from Golaghat district.

The other schools from where students made it to the nationals are Army Public School and Assam Rifles Public School in Jorhat. A few other schools from Guwahati also made it to the nationals. A few students from Dhubri district also made it to the national mega finals.

Seven students from Nagaland made it to the nationals.

Arenya Yaden, coordinator for all the districts which attended the national-level completion at South City International School in Calcutta, said it was the best of the best and therefore tough.

"This year, we could send only seven students but next year we will be sending more. Most of the students were from Dimapur's Maple Tree School, Don Bosco and Delhi Public School, and one from Little Flower Higher Secondary School in Kohima. We had got around 7,000 registrations in the school level but this time, we will explore more districts as we expect around 30,000 entries," she said.

Roy said Spell Bee engaged students in different competitions and tested their knowledge in spelling, grammar, homophones, idioms and vocabulary and pronunciation through written and oral rounds in each of the categories.

Carmel School principal Sister Monica said in Jorhat district, Carmel had won almost all the prizes in the interschool level and this year, too, of the 30 prizes in the six categories, they bagged more than half.

Maharishi Vidya Mandir principal Malabika Bordoloi said this was the first time that Maharishi had participated in the competition and they were happy with the outcome.