In Kosovo this April, a team of four girls between the ages of 15 and 18 represented Ireland at the prestigious European Girls’ Mathematical Olympiad (EGMO). They achieved our second-best set of results since the competition was founded in 2012, including a bronze medal and a haul of 43 points. For context, Ireland has broken the 40-point barrier only once before.
“I think this is the beginning of a new era,” says Dr Myrto Manolaki, an assistant professor and maths lecturer at University College Dublin (UCD), who coached this year’s group. “The fact that Ireland has become more international also has a positive impact in education.
“There is higher competition; there are people who have been educated in different backgrounds. This brings up the level. The very first milestone is how to promote this type of competition and things like maths-enrichment classes for girls.”
A high-level, extracurricular maths competition for young female students, the EGMO exists separately to the International Mathematical Olympiad, another competition for gifted teenagers that has been running since 1959.
The need for the EGMO is evidenced in the disparity in the number of boys and girls that compete in the International Mathematical Olympiad: this year, all six representatives of
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