It's crunch-time.

After two weeks of plenty nervous pauses and in-depth thoughts, the Sowetan SA Home Loans School Quiz will come to and end this Saturday.

Last week, eight schools made it to the final round and on Saturday, they battle it out for the grand prize.

They are: St. Francis College, Springs Girls High, Alexandra Secondary, Jabulani Technical High, Inkonjane Junior Secondary, Vaal High, Aha-Thuto Secondary and Maphutha Secondary.

Sowetan editor-in-chief and quiz master Nwabisa Makunga is expected to put the pupils through their paces with questions from four categories namely: political news, current affairs, entertainment and sports news sourced from the latest newspaper’s editions.

Speaking about the upcoming final round Makunga said, “What an exciting journey this has been for us as the Sowetan team as well as the schools that have been involved since the beginning.

“For the last several weeks these young people have warmly embraced this initiative, and importantly tapped their own potential and hopefully, grown in their understanding of the world around them.

“We look forward to the last leg and so excited to see which team takes the top spot,” Makunga added.

Makunga previously said the aim of the competition was to encourage a culture of reading among children and inspire them to know about their surroundings.

Held at the Sowetan building in Parktown, Johannesburg, the final schools are set for a battle of the wits to see who will walk away with the grand prize of R50,000. Not to be disheartened the 1st and second runner-up schools will take home R30,000 and R15,000 respectively. Learners can also look forward to loads of additional sponsored prizes which will be given away as well.

Other sponsors are:

• VAYA footwear which will give away 12 brand new pairs of sneakers for the top three winning schools plus an additional nine pairs for the reader competition. The sneakers have a total value of R25,200;
• Freedom Stationary has sponsored us with 128 stationary pack items such as 2 quire hard cover books, soft cover exercise books, rulers, rubbers, pens and pencils to top up the pupils stationery for second term;
• Futurelife has sponsored us with 500g Futurelife Smart Food and 700g Futurelife Smart Oats Classic towards the 128 goodie bags valued at R 22,735;
• BIC World has donated additional blue pens and pencils towards the 128 learner goodie bags;    
• Bargain Books has donated R15,000 worth of reading books and novels which are age appropriate to the grade 8 to 12 pupils that make it to the top 16 schools in our quarter finals round which will be taking place on the second Saturday of elimination rounds; and
• Eastgate Shopping Centre has sponsored us with R10,000 worth of shopping vouchers which will be awarded to the Top 16 schools that make it to the quarter finals rounds.

mchunus@sowetan.co.za