The all island schools' spelling competition "Spellmaster" which is now one of the most popular education programmes among all ages with the telecasting of the programme on Sirasa TV, switched focus to the Uva and Sabaragammuwa province of Sri Lanka.

334 students from these two provinces competed in the quarter finals where four competitions were conducted in Ratnapura to select 25 spellers who would move into the semi finals, where 250 top spellers in the country will be competing for the title of Spellmaster.Last year, only one student from the Sabaragammuwa Province made it to the Top 20, Indeevarie Gunathilaka from St.Agnes' Balika Maha Vidyalaya.

This year, a majority of the schools did extremely well, where almost 15 to 17 students out of the 20 who sat for the preliminary round dictation test qualified to the quarter finals. From the Badulla district, Bandarawela Madya Maha Vidyalaya, Dharmapala Maha Vidyalaya, Kuda Kusum Balika Maha Vidyalaya, Tamil Central College Bandarawela, Welimada Central College and Royal College Monaragala from the Monaragala district did exceptionally well. Rathnaloka Maha Vidyalaya Rakwana, Sumana Balika Vidyalaya, and Sivali Central College from the Ratnapura district took up the majority of the places to the quarter finals from that district.

Finally, from the Kegalle district, Baduriya Central College did amazingly well with all 20 contestants passing the dictation test and qualifying for the quarter finals. The contestants from these two provinces were geared and ready to battle it out for the 25 seats remaining for the semi finals which are to be held in Colombo. Every student could be seen with a dictionary in hand and constantly referring it for new words in the hope that they'll get through.