New Delhi (NVI): While the BRICS elders test the business waters, its about two million pupils, including from 20600 schools affiliated to India’s Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), will test their mathematics skills in an innovative online competition.
The 3rd edition of the international contest, BRICSMATH.COM, was off to a ceremonial start in India at an event organised by FICCI ARISE here today. The competition would continue till 13 December this year. The Ceremonial Start of the main round happened at the XIth BRICS Summit in Brasilia.
BRICSMATH.COM initiative is a free of cost global opportunity for Grade 1 to 12 school students of BRICS nations comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
“It is expected that in 2019, two million children will participate in 3rd BRICSMATH.COM,” a Ficci release said.
Speaking on the occasion, Joint Secretary (Academics) of CBSE Pushkar Vohra said that the competition, which the Board is promoting in all its affiliated schools across India, will go a long way in building mathematical abilities in students.
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to India Nikolay Rishatovich Kudashev said “BRICSMATH believes that maths must be studied as it stimulates logical thinking in students. The competition provides an opportunity for the students to test themselves regardless of any caste discrimination and aims to unite the children of all 5 BRICS countries.”
Zhu Xiaohong, Chancellor of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China said, “Education is one of the 10 priority areas for pragmatic deliberations between BRICS countries. BRICSMATH will empower students to think out of the box, develop cognitive skills and motivate themselves to learn more.”
André Corrêa do Lago, Ambassador of Brazil in India said, “We as BRICS leaders get together and develop ideas for the growth of the countries, it’s through the adoption of these ideas that people bring them to reality.”
This year, the BRICSMATH project was actively supported by the Ministry of External Affairs of the Russian Federation and India; Ambassador of Brazil in the Russian Federation; Agency of the Strategic Initiatives, Ambassador of Russian Federation in Brazil; Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China; Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Human Resource Development India; Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) & FICCI ARISE; and Ministry of Basic Education of South Africa.
In 2018, at a meeting of the Supervisory Board of the Agency for Strategic Initiative, President of Russia Mr VV Putin approved the project and supported the initiative of the solemn launch of the competition at the BRICS Summit.
Over 6,70,000 primary school students from Brazil, Russia, China, India, and South Africa took part in the first International online competition BRICSMATH.COM in 2017. In 2018 the participation reached 1 million mark.
-nad