Dhaka Math Festival
Over 1500 display math skills
Staff Correspondent
Dhaka Divisional Mathematics Festival was held at Govt Laboratory High School in the city yesterday in a festive mood with the participation of students from 100 schools of Dhaka, Gazipur, Narsingdi, Narayanganj, Munshiganj and Manikganj districts.
As many as 1,584 students took part in different daylong programmes, including math test, friendship session, question answer session and quest for local history.
On the basis of their performance, 120 students were selected for the two-day National Mathematics Festival-2009 and 7th Bangladesh Math Olympiad to be held on February 13 and 14 at St Joseph Higher Secondary School in the city.
The students taking part in Math Olympiad were divided in four categories — Primary (Class III-V), Junior (VI-VIII), Secondary (IX-X-SSC) and Higher Secondary (XI-XII-HSC).
Bangladesh Math Olympiad Committee (BMOC) organised the festival in collaboration with the Dutch-Bangla Bank Ltd (DBBL) and the Prothom Alo.
Math Talent searching programme has been divided into 14 math divisions comprising Dinajpur, Rajshahi, Bogra, Jessore, Khulna, Barisal, Faridpur, Tangail, Dhaka, Comilla, Noakhali, Chittagong, Rangamati and Sylhet.
Meanwhile, the competitions of 11 math divisions were completed. From each divisional festival, 60 winners were selected for the national math festival and 7th Bangladesh Math Olympiad.
The best performer of the national Olympiad will get the chance to participate in the 50th International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO) in Germany. This is for the fifth time Bangladeshi students are taking part in the prestigious event.
Headmaster AKM Mostafa Kamal inaugurated the math festival by hoisting the national flag on the high school premises, while BMOC President and Brac University Vice Chancellor Prof Jamilur Reza Chowdhury hoisted maths Olympiad flags and released balloons.
Prof Md Zafar Iqbal, DBBL Managing Director Yasin Ali, Prof Khodadad Khan, Prof Mohammed Kaikobad, noted mathematician Prof Lutfuzzaman, Joint Editor of Prothom Alo Abdul Quaiyum and BMOC General Secretary Munir Hasan took part in the festival.
Speakers at the programme said mathematics is an easy subject if it is practised well, adding that the objective of the festival is to popularise maths among the students.
Participants laid emphasis on introducing information technology to upgrade standards of maths at school and college levels.
Bangla Innovation through Open Source (Bios), a voluntary organisation, mobilised visitors and participators at the programme to cast their votes for Sundarbans and Cox’s Bazar to place them in the list of the world’s new seven wonders.
Courtesy: thedailystar.net
