ISLAMABAD: The 11th Dawn-in-Education Spelling Bee Competition 2015, organised by Dawn Media Group in partnership with the US embassy, began at Islamabad Club Auditorium on Tuesday.

The four-day competition is being participated by 180 schools and 1,600 students from the North region.

For the Islamabad Regional Championship, teams from Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Murree, Abbottabad, Wah, Muzzaffarabad, Mirpur, Chakwal, Bahawalpur, Khewra, Skardu, Khaplu, Gilgit, Kawardu and many more surrounding areas of Gilgit Baltistan are participating in the contest.

Participants have been divided into three age groups: nine to 11, 12 to 14 and 15 to 17 years.

On Tuesday, the competition was held among children in the age group of nine to 11. Similarly teams of the other two age groups will compete in a same way till Friday. Elimination round for each age category will be played by the winning teams. At this stage participants will compete on individual basis. The final round will be played for the championship, 1st runner-up and second runner up of the competition for each age group.

As a part of Dawn-in-Education programme, the first ever Spelling Bee championship was conducted in 2005. The Spelling Bee competition was aimed at helping students to improve their spellings, increase their vocabulary and learn new concepts.