Emirati students bring glory to country

Emirati students made UAE proud by winning prizes at the international maths contest held in Cambodia this week, competing against 4000 students from 40 countries. The winners had participated in the 24th UCMAS Abacus and Mental Arithmetic International Competition 2019, where they were given the overwhelming task of answering 200 Math questions in a span of mere 8 minutes with the help of just visuals- with questions going up to as high as 50 digit numbers and decimals at higher levels.

 In all 41 students won awards in different categories. Besides Emiratis, others winners comprised 17 Indians, 4 Jordanians, 4 Sri Lankans, 2 Iraqis and 1 Omani, Lebanese, Filipino and Bangladeshi. Out of the winners, 10 students were awarded the Champions’ trophies, while two hearing impaired children also achieved honors at the competition by securing the 1st and 2nd runner up positions at the visual arithmetic contest.

Commenting on the milestone, Mrs VG Soundari Raj, Managing Director, UCMAS UAE, said: “Achieving such a glorious win for the UAE just days after we celebrate the 48thNational Day reflects the true spirit of our Rulers’ vision to promote education and learning. It was great to see participation of such a diverse group of students belonging to different nationalities, which simply underlines how well every community in the UAE is doing in terms of education.

The crucial concept of Visual Arithmetic, i.e., thinking in pictures and using the right brain leads to clearer thinking, improved memory, faster calculation speed and greater efficiency and accuracy. The concept is an essential building block that replaces the physical Abacus (a calculating tool) in the child’s mind and by using snapshots of a virtual Abacus enables students to solve questions much faster than they could before.

Students in the Basic and Elementary levels were permitted to use the Abacus to do their addition or subtraction. However, as the levels progressed to Intermediate, students could only use mental method to do the addition, subtraction, multiplications and division questions. For each level, a Grand Champion, Champion, 1st Runner Up, 2nd Runner Up, 3rd Runner Up and Merit prizes were awarded.

In all 52 students from the UAE participated in the contest belonging to the UAE, Indian, Jordan, Iraq, Sri Lankan, Oman, Syrian, Canada, Philippines, Bangladesh and Lebanon.

“The children and the youth of today are smarter, more intelligent, more willing to push the envelope. In this regard, the UCMAS programme fits in well with its constructive and productive approach, channelizing young minds to think critically and become more agile.”