Contributed by Xie Feijun
Translated by Chen Shuling
Chongqing Educational Committee announced that the bonus point in school attending examinations of all kinds of Olympic contests in the city will be cancelled from this year. No bonus point in examinations about attending junior schools or high schools,and the bonus point policy in the university entrance examination for the Olympic contest prize winners in high schools which is used now will also be cancelled. The winners of municipal contests of school study can only get the bonus point when they are entering for a local university this year. From the year after next, all the bonus point for the municipal Olympic contests winners will be cancelled. Chinese Version>>
There's no doubt that the new rule made by Chongqing Educational Committee will make a few people nervous. After all,both students and parents in China have a special and complicated feeling to Olympic Maths. It seems a short cut many parents prepared for children which is to start learning Olympic Maths in primary school, then to win national prizes in middle schools, finally to be recommended for admission for Beijing University or Qinghua University. To realize this dream, many parents make use of all the ways to force or guide children to have different kinds of Olympic contest training classes.
In fact, various sections of society and educational experts have critisized a lot about such training classes. But the wave of Olympic Maths is overwhelming everywhere. As we all know, to get the open sesame to famous schools is the main cause of the passion which parents have for the Olympic Maths.It's regarded as an important standard for good students in school entrance examinations in some places. This makes parents scramble for the Olympic Maths classes, which leads to the Olympic Maths Industry. On this point, stopping the bonus point for Olympic Maths in Chongqing can be considered as seeing the essence of the wave of the Olympic Maths and keeping it within limits from the beginning.
However, after the Olympic classes are cancelled, whether new things like those classes will appear is another problem which needs paying attention to. It needs to be pointed out that there's nothing wrong with the Olympic Maths itself, only wrongly used.
Olympic Maths is the short title of the Olympic Maths Contest, which as an international contest, many countries participate in. Differently, the public in other countries care little about the contests. The foreigh student take part in the contests only because of their interest. They learn Olympic Maths with neither being organized nor system training, which is quite diffrent from Chinese students' strict training and being filtered to get the eligibility for contest. In terms of this point, even though we can achieve better marks in international contests, they are closer to the essence of Olympic Maths. The Olympic Maths is only suitable for a small part of children who are much cleverer than the average, and is to stimulate their interest in maths.
It's the first time in China to proclaim the stop of Olympic Maths in writing locally. Wish every city could return the real appearance to Olympic Maths in succession after Chongqing. Someday in the future, when Chinese students treat Olympic Maths the same way as they treat other interests such as singing, painting or Chinese chess, the sense of Olympic Maths will become really clear.