Excitement was an understatement last Saturday at the British Council in Accra when ace broadcast journalists Kojo Oppong Nkrumah and Paul Adom Okyere, together with Acting Commercial Manager at Tigo, Ama Daaku, took on Ghana’s brightest and most ambitious university graduates during the search for candidates for the 6th season of the award winning reality TV, ‘The Challenge’. One by one they grilled each candidate with thought-provoking questions from every subject imaginable.

For some of the several hundreds of young, confident, bright and ambitious Ghanaian university graduates who turned up, it was an encounter of mixed feelings. While they were, on the one hand, star-struck by the domineering presence of our two celebrity panel members, alongside the pretty Ama in the middle, the thoughts of what words, what answers and what posture to maintain before the panel inundated them on the other hand.

From 6am through the day, the numbers only swelled as batch after batch took the aptitude tests that would grant them access to the next stage of the competition. By the time it was over, about a third of the total had sailed through, ready to meet the panel one-on-one.

A little over 30 candidates sailed through this segment of the competition and out of this number, some 15 will be chosen at an official launch in the next few days.

The Challenge is a life changing prospect where 15 out of the many who apply get the rare opportunity to pitch their persona, intelligence and ingenuity against each other in a test for leadership qualities, creativity, astuteness, analytical thinking and a lot more.

The prizes have over the years been comparable to none. The winner of The Challenge Season 4, among several other prizes, wins a fully sponsored full board postgraduate scholarship from three of Europe’s most respected universities—the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, Scotland, the University of Northumbria and the University of Salford in Manchester.

The package includes air tickets to and from the UK, stipends for food, warm clothing, free tuition, free accommodation and a lot more.

The Challenge is a British Council Ghana initiative produced by GhOne TV with support from the Robert Gordon University, the University of Northumbria, the University of Salford, Vitamilk, the Universal Merchant and proudly sponsored by TIGO.

The educational reality TV show, the first and only one of its kind in Ghana, was launched some five years ago by the British Council of Ghana in collaboration with GhOne Entertainment TV with sponsorship by telecoms giant TIGO and a host of others.

It premieres this Sunday at 5pm on Afro Star TV, 6pm on GhOne Entertainment TV, 6:30pm on E-TV and at 8pm on Viasat One. Tune in for all the fun.