The 23rd Pan African Mathematics Olympiad (PAMO) and the 1st Pan African Mathematics Olympiad for Girls (PAMO-G) concurrently took place at the National Mathematical Centre in Abuja, Nigeria from the 16th till the 29th of August 2015. A total of 9 African countries participated in the PAMO. Nigeria was ranked first, followed by South Africa in the second place and Tunisia in third place.
The South African team consisted of 6 high school learners – 3 males and 3 females. All six members won medals. SangEun Lee, a grade 11 learner at St Georges Grammar School in Cape Town obtained a gold medal. Timothy Schlesinger, a grade 9 learner from Rondebosch Boys High School won a silver medal. Jiangliang Yu (grade 10 learner from Crawford College Pretoria), Hannah Clayton (grade 11 from Rustenburg School for Girls), Glenda Watt (grade 11 from Durban Girls College) and Arthur Qampi (grade 11 from Star College) all obtained bronze medals. The team trained and participated under the watchful eyes of Liam Baker and Dylan Nelson, two former medallists of the South African Mathematics Olympiad.
The African Queen of mathematics at this year’s PAMO-G is SangEun Lee. Obtaining an overall 2nd position in the PAMO makes SangEun’s performance even more remarkable. SangEun is also the only girl who has been selected as a South African Mathematics Olympiad medallist. South Africa was the winning team for PAMO-G having obtained a gold medal, one silver medal and one bronze medal.
The PAMO and PAMO-G aim to enable top mathematics learners from all over Africa to test their knowledge and problem solving abilities. The PAMO also contributes to the integration and detection of new talents in mathematics in order to secure a changeover of quality from within the African continent. The problems solved at the PAMO cover different areas of interest of pre-university education. In particular the questions cover algebra, geometry, number theory, combinatory and probability. This year was the first ever PAMO-G and 12 girls from Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Nigeria and South Africa took part in the competition.
Professor Johann Engelbrecht, Executive Director of the South African Mathematics Foundation (SAMF), says it is a great honour for the whole country. “We are all very proud of our young mathematicians. SangEun Lee has really done well by not only winning the girls division, but was also the best South African participant and was ranked 2nd overall in the PAMO.”
The team for this year’s PAMO was selected from the top 50 learners who participated in the Final Round of the South African Mathematics Olympiad and other SAMF Olympiad training programmes.
Registration for the 2016 SAMO takes place in January each year. For more information please call the SAMF office at 012 392 9362 or send an e-mail to info@samf.ac.za
