“At first, obviously that sounds kind of silly because, at school, all we’re taught is to learn about knowledge.
“But I dove deeper … into the fact that it’s actually what drives us to gain knowledge, and it’s what’s [driven] us to evolve the way we have.
“It’s like almost what creates all of our myths and legends, like Papatūānuku [Earth mother] and Ranginui [sky father].”
Niksha said other finalists “followed a more scientific path”, talking about how imagination led to inventions.
“I used imagination to talk about how it allows us to put ourselves in the shoes of others, lets us form empathy, lets us form hope throughout history.”
She spent about two weeks writing and practising her speech. She presented it to a judging panel and crowd.
She also had to do an impromptu speech. Finalists were given the topic “courage is contagious”, and three minutes to prepare.
“Surprisingly, it went really well. I’d never done one before, but I was just calm, and I just thought of a hook and a couple of key points to say and a conclusion to wrap it up.”
She was shocked and happy to win.
The finalists have been invited to Parliament for a “mock debate” on October 19.
“I think it’s just for us to gain experience and see what it’s like in Parliament.”
Niksha would like to study either medicine or law after finishing school.
John Paul College Year 11 student Niksha Pardal won her category in the 2026 GreatTalk National Speech competition.
Her mother, Manjula Pardal, said Niksha was 9 when she first presented on stage, doing a character recital.
“I was so impressed to see how impressed the judges were … I had just put her in a class where she went for a few weeks, and there she was on the stage, really, really doing so well.”
Pardal was proud of her “very talented” daughter.
“This is a wonderful achievement for Niksha, and we are extremely proud of the confidence, dedication and effort she put into the competition.”
Niksha’s speech: Imagination is more important than knowledge
Before the stars were named, someone looked into the night sky and dared to wonder if those distant lights were more than just dots in the darkness.
Before the first airplane was built, the Wright brothers imagined a world where flying was possible.
Before the world became what it is today, it existed only as a possibility in someone’s mind.
Albert Einstein understood this. He once said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
And perhaps that sounds strange. How could imagination be more important than knowledge? Knowledge is the understanding we gain through learning, experience and observation. But imagination is the mind’s power to form ideas that have never been experienced in reality.
When we look at the greatest discoveries in history, imagination is often hidden behind the achievement itself. Every invention begins with someone imagining what could exist before knowledge is used to make it real.
In this sense, imagination is what gives birth to knowledge and lays the foundation for curiosity. Most of us, especially students, have been critiqued for asking too many questions, but imagination encourages us to ask questions that lead to the biggest discoveries, advancing science to explain the world.
But early humans did not have complex theories. The imagination they used to explain the world around them was so extraordinary that we still tell those stories today.
For example, the earth and sky are actually Papatūānuku and Ranginui, earth mother and sky father, pushed apart by their children to create the world.
These myths and legends weren’t only a way to explain the world but a source of hope and excitement. If humans had just accepted that they live in a world they know nothing about, and couldn’t imagine better days, what hope was there to move forward?
In that sense, imagination drove evolution itself.
The stories added meaning to so many people’s lives and work. This is why every culture has their own stories of creation and why they are still told today.
In a way, it is this creative thinking that makes us uniquely human and brings us life. For what would life be if we had nothing left to discover and questioned nothing? We would be no different from a robot.
In modern life, imagination allows us to make complex decisions and solve problems with outside-the-box answers. It fuels counterfactual thinking and lets us wonder what if?
What if I had studied for that test or tried a little harder in my competition? By wondering what could have been different, we can create a roadmap of change for next time.
But its most useful quality is that it allows us to put ourselves in the shoes of others. Empathy is the most important human characteristic, and imagination drives that. We do not have to have specifically gone through someone else’s experience to understand their emotions.
But by imagining ourselves in their place, we form empathy, and this is what leads us to show them aroha. Aroha is such a crucial part of New Zealand culture, because we need to show it to each other, but also because we show it to the land and to ourselves.
By showing aroha to ourselves, we can imagine better days than we have right now, which is crucial for everyone, especially those going through hard times.
Albert Einstein once said imagination is more important than knowledge. And perhaps what makes those words so powerful is that they came from a man who understood knowledge better than most of us.
Knowledge tells us about the world as it is, but imagination tells us about the world as it could be. It allows us to foster hope, empathy and aroha. It lets us dream of worlds that do not yet exist and fantasise of a better future for all of us.
He rangi tā matawhāiti, he rangi tā matawhānui. A person with narrow vision has a restricted horizon. A person with wide vision has plentiful opportunities. A person with more imagination has more opportunities.
Megan Wilson is a health and general news reporter for the Bay of Plenty Times and the Rotorua Daily Post. She has been a journalist since 2021.