Nigerian students emerge champions in new education programme

As strategies to improve the education sector continue to evolve in the country, a revolutionary educational programme, Universal Concept of Mental Arithmetic System (UCMAS) recently demonstrated great potentials when four Nigerian pupils defeated their counterparts from Ghana at an arithmetic competition held in Accra.

The pupils, Chidiuto Nicole Okorie, Netochukwu Mba Linus, Mgbobukwu Amarachi and Elangwe Oreoluwa, all aged nine years, are pupils of St Leo’s Catholic Private School, Ikeja, Lagos.

The four children who spent only a year on the programme were crowned winners after answering with speed and accuracy, 100 mental arithmetic questions within eight minutes to defeat their counterparts with four years in the system.

According to the UCMAS Nigeria Country Manager, Emmanuel Alade, “The programme is a novel and path-breaking system of education recognised and practiced in over 60 countries of the world and uses unique methodologies to stimulate and challenge the brain neurons of children.

“It is also aimed at developing both the right and left hemispheres of the brain, thereby enhancing their concentration, imagination, logical reasoning, mental arithmetic skills, speed and accuracy, photographic memory, listening skills, comprehension, creativity, visualisation and memorisation skills.

Alade explained that the programme which came to Nigeria in 2015 for the benefit of students between five to 14 years of age, is an ISO certified system with recognition from the National Association for the Education of Young Children, Association for Childhood Education International, LIMCA Book of Record in India, Malaysian Book of Records, World Association of Abacus Mental Arithmetic of China and the Chinese Zhusuan Association.

Speaking further on the system. Alade said UCMAS helps to reduce gadget dependency in children with ripple effects of all round academic proficiency, confidence, international exposure and certification.

He said: “After going through the UCMAS programme, a child needs no gadget to do mental arithmetic from single and double digits of about 10 to 100 rows involving all operations. For the lay man, he would be interested in their mathematics aspects, but for us we are looking at other skills.”

Alade laid emphasis on the skills the children develop through UCMAS saying their level of concentration, skill; speed and accuracy outshine others who are not in the programme no matter how intelligent they are.

“ A child may know all the answers but because he has not being trained to do it very fast, he may end up failing the examination, not because he is not good or that he doesn’t know the answers, but because his speed and accuracy are not developed,” he said.

Alade advised parents not to lose hope in their wards but enroll them for the programme in order to help discover the genius within them.