On August 10, in Hanoi, the Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics in collaboration with the Vietnam Institute of Mathematics organized a workshop to evaluate the training and results of national and international mathematics competitions for students in the period 2015 - 2024, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Vietnam's participation in the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO).

TEAM SELECTION NEEDS TO CHANGE

Professor Le Anh Vinh, Director of the Vietnam Institute of Educational Sciences, who has accompanied and led the Vietnamese team to compete in the IMO for 11 years, said that if ranked full-time, in 48 times participating in the IMO, Vietnam won 69 gold medals (an average of 1.44 gold medals/year), ranking 8th; and if ranked by the period 2013 - 2024, Vietnam won 23 gold medals (an average of 1.92 gold medals/year), ranking 5th. Most of the students competing in the IMO come from specialized schools in provinces and cities, followed by specialized schools under universities. Only Le Hong Phong High School (Phu Yen) is a non-specialized school with students competing in the IMO.

"Should we try to maintain top 5-10, or do we want to compete for top 1-4?". When asked this question, Professor Vinh affirmed that choosing the team is the most important factor in determining the team's performance.

Sharing the method of selecting the teams of the strongest countries participating in IMO (China, USA, Russia, Korea) with a fairly flexible process and over a long period of time, Professor Vinh said that Vietnam's team selection method is very simple. Specifically, around August - November every year, local teams are selected; in December - January of the following year, a national competition is held to select excellent students; in March, a competition is held to select teams for international competitions. Compared to the 4 countries that are always at the top of IMO, Vietnam still has a large gap in team selection. Therefore, Professor Vinh said that if we want to compete at the top, we can think about and improve the team selection method.

From the experience of a unit with many years of high achievements participating in IMO, Mr. Nguyen Vu Luong, Chairman of the Scientific Training Council, former Principal of the School of Natural Sciences - University of Natural Sciences (Vietnam National University, Hanoi), mentioned the importance of early detection of students who are good at math. The school was the first unit to organize a team study model since 1993. Before this time, inviting good teachers to teach was mainly initiated by well-off families, not happening on a school scale. However, what made Mr. Luong decide to train the team was because there were students who met him and cried because their parents did not have the conditions to invite good teachers to teach. "Since organizing team study, the learning atmosphere has been better, poor students also have the opportunity to study with good teachers," said Mr. Luong.

Mr. Luong also suggested that it is necessary to improve the national excellent student exam to be closer to the international exam; to establish a math Olympic committee and pay more attention to incentive and reward policies...

Mr. Tran Nam Dung, Vice Principal of the Gifted High School (Ho Chi Minh City National University), also affirmed that the team's achievements depend a lot on whether we can choose a really good team or not. "Currently, we have only chosen a single team from the exam, so sometimes there are errors," said Mr. Dung.

TEACHING AND LEARNING MATH MUST BE INTERESTING AND EFFECTIVE

At the workshop, Mr. Hoang Minh Son, Deputy Minister of Education and Training, raised the issue: The Ministry of Education and Training always emphasizes the role of mathematics, from general education to university and post-graduate training, in research. Currently, with the development of science and technology, mathematics is becoming more and more important. However, Mr. Son also pointed out the reality that somewhere in universities, in some industries and fields, mathematics is taken lightly; there are programs and majors that reduce the amount of time for mathematics. Teaching mathematics in many technical schools is also less attractive; students are not very interested in studying mathematics, and the results are not very good...

Mr. Son also mentioned a piece of information that he considered "sad": the percentage of specialized school students choosing STEM majors at university is only over 25.6% while the national average is over 31%...

To maintain and improve the achievements of the Vietnamese math team, promote math teaching, increase interest and learn math effectively, according to Deputy Minister Son, we must start from high school, do better math teaching and learning in high school, and do better research in universities. How to make math not only occupy more of the training program but also make math teaching and learning more interesting and effective for learners.

HOW CAN YOU STAY CONFIDENT WHEN MATH TIME IS CUTTLED?

Attending the conference, Professor Ngo Bao Chau affirmed that IMO is still a playground for the intellectual sport of mathematics, and is partly a measure to evaluate a country's capacity to develop mathematics education.

According to Professor Chau, former IMO students have been and are professional scientists, with international prestige, actively contributing to the development of Vietnamese mathematics... But besides that, there are still questions: how to make the movement of learning mathematics more sustainable and widespread? More broadly, how to make mathematics and other basic subjects become a voluntary choice for young people?

"We are talking a lot about training human resources for artificial intelligence, then semiconductors - mastering these technologies. But how can we master them if the time for math subjects and perhaps many other basic subjects is cut, both in high school and university? In the era of information explosion, of artificial intelligence, I think we need to avoid cramming new knowledge, but need to return to the basic foundations, with basic principles of reasoning and thinking", said Professor Ngo Bao Chau, at the same time thinking that although there are opinions on why the budget is used to invest in a small group of good students, but investing in math, IMO, good students is a worthy investment for the future of science and technology development of the country.

Mr. Bui The Duy, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology, said that investing in mathematics is a long-term investment. If investment in mathematics requires immediate economic results, it will be very difficult.