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Western Province and Wits Siyanqoba teams crowned as winners of the 2018 ASSA Mathematics Team Competition

Monday, 10 September 2018

Western Province and Wits Siyanqoba teams crowned as winners of the 2018 ASSA Mathematics Team Competition

Western Province A and Wits Siyanqoba A teams retain their ASSA Mathematics Team Competition crown on Saturday the 8th of September. 87 teams from 16 regions took part in the competition organised by the South African Mathematics Foundation (SAMF).

The annual Mathematics Team Competition, sponsored by the Actuarial Society of South Africa and Casio, aims to develop mathematical skills of talented learners who have been identified through the South African Mathematics Olympiad (SAMO) and other SAMF Olympiad programmes, such as the Siyanqoba Regional Olympiad Training Programme.  This programme is sponsored by the Department of Science and Technology and consists of bi-weekly classes at nine centres across the country concentrating on developing mathematical problem-solving skills. This year, 7 Siyanqoba centres participated in the ASSA South African Mathematics Team Competition, namely the Centre of Excellence in Mathematical and Statistical Science at WITS, Algoa College of Education in Port Elizabeth, University of Pretoria, University of Limpopo, Rhodes University, University of Venda and University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Each team enters two teams of ten: Junior (grades 8 and 9), Senior (grades 10 to 12) and may also enter additional teams at each level. The first part of the competition is a one-hour individual paper, consisting of 15 problems in multiple-choice format. The second paper consists of ten problems and the teams work together and submit one set of answers.

Professor Kerstin Jordaan, Executive Director at SAMF, congratulates the winners. “The ASSA Mathematics Team Competition encourages talented learners to develop and strengthen their mathematics skills. For SAMF, this competition plays an important role towards the contribution we believe Mathematics can make in the skills and knowledge improvement for South Africa’s future.  SAMF would like to acknowledge all the students who made the effort to participate and we congratulate the winners,” she said.

Mike McDougall, Chief Executive of the Actuarial Society, states that the Society believes in helping learners achieve their academic potential. “The Actuarial Society takes pride in the achievements of the country’s top students through the Mathematics Team Competition. This strongly compliments our more broad based sponsorship through the Actuarial Education Trust of high school mathematics in disadvantaged areas in collaboration with Paper Video.  We believe that these two initiatives will challenge more students to fulfil their academic potential and we look forward to one day welcoming the most able into the actuarial profession,” he explained.  

The full results are available on http://www.samfolympiads.co.za/SAIPMOComp.aspx

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