While tens of thousands of pupils suffer from mathematics anxiety, solving maths problems is a walk in the park for Andi Qu.
The 18-year-old pupil at St John’s College in Johannesburg was named SA’s Best Young Mathematician in the senior division of the Old Mutual South African Mathematics Olympiad on Saturday.
Minkyum Kim, a Grade 9 pupil at Cape Town’s Reddam House Durbanville, came first in the junior division.
The event, hosted by the South African Mathematics Foundation (SAMF) and Old Mutual honours schools, as well as pupils and teachers who achieved in the various development programmes run by the organisation every year.
A total of 1,200 schools participated and there were 44,487 pupils in the senior section and 41,956 in the junior section.
Qu told Sunday Times Daily that he “felt quite good” about being declared the overall winner because he had been preparing for it since Grade 8.
“You get four hours to solve five problems. During my preparation for the olympiad, I learn the theory first and solve past problems so I can build an intuition on how to solve new problems.”
The olympiad tests pupils in four categories — algebra, geometry, trigonometry and combinatorics, an area of maths which involves mainly counting.
Qu, who is in matric, said he planned to study computer science next year, but hadn’t decided on the university he would like to do so at.
He urged pupils who were battling with maths to do a lot of practice “instead of just trying to memorise the theory”.
“If you memorise the theory, you are going to inevitably freeze and not remember it, and I think that’s what makes people scared of maths. They can’t remember stuff because they haven’t done enough practice.”
Meanwhile, Kim told Sunday Times Daily he was overjoyed at being placed first in the junior section after coming fourth last year.
“It was my goal last year to come first and I have now achieved my goal.”
He said maths was about understanding concepts and then practising “by going through lots of examples and questions”.
“You have to keep on doing examples to sharpen your skills, rather than trying to memorise things.”
According to a press release, Prof Jonathan Jansen from Stellenbosch University said “so much of our system of education is built on mediocrity, built on just getting by”.
“There is something in the way we teach mathematics that doesn’t encourage people to think laterally, to be more efficient, to get to an answer in their own way, because we are so traditional and rule-bound.” Jansen said the country needs high-level skills which are often based on competence in mathematics.
Prof Kerstin Jordaan, SAMF’s executive director, said one of their main goals was to make a positive impact on the standard of mathematics teaching and learning in SA.
“The learners, schools and volunteers who received recognition today are proof that we are well on our way to making an impact.”
The individual award for the top best performing black pupil in the senior section went Kgaugelo Bopape from Horizon International School in Gauteng, while the award in the junior section went to Atlegang Letloenyane from Brebner High School in the Free State.
The top performing schools in the different quintiles were Highveld Secondary School in Mpumalanga (quintile 1); Sterkspruit Junior Secondary School in the Eastern Cape (quintile 2); Giyani High School in Limpopo (quintile 3); Hoërskool Eldoraigne in Gauteng (quintile 4) and Westerford High School in the Western Cape (quintile 5).
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