What Are Olympiads?
Olympiads are also called educational tournaments. Olympiads are a kind of competitive exam held across schools, colleges and universities to get exceptional students with the best potential, talent, ability and IQ. Olympiad exams are a gateway for students to discover their strengths in education. These exams enhance the student’s ability to learn, logical reasoning and scientific abilities. During these exams the subjects covered were – Science, Mathematics, Computers or other languages like English or Urdu. At the national or international level, they can monitor and work on their significant weaknesses that reinforce their strengths. It boosts their confidence to improve academically.
Olympiads are scholarships given to top performers. Olympiads or Olympiad is basically a means for students to compete with other students at a similar educational level. These exams support the acquisition of skills in subjects such as mathematics, science, computer technology or the English language. The Olympiad helps students analyze their strengths and weaknesses based on their performance in a national or international examination. These exams provide an absolute assessment of students’ knowledge and motivate them to improve academically. Participating students are judged on their scientific reasoning and logical ability.
The oldest Olympiad we know of is a group of competitions known collectively as the International Science Olympiads. In order to be selected for the International Science Olympiad, a student must first qualify for the National Science Olympiad, which is held at all schools in the country.
Each participating school usually first holds a screening round in which it selects its best students, who are then sent to participate in the National Science Olympiad, after which they may have the chance to compete at the international level.
Why Are Olympiads So Popular Among Parents?
Participating in and winning any competition – be it a simple gully cricket match or a World Cup – is one of the best feelings in the world. Competitions recognize merit, performance, excellence – literally the best in a human being. However, it takes a lot to be selected as the best of the best. And so the chances of a student decrease as the number of participants increases.
So it might be understandable that: there is a lot of pride associated with a child qualifying for one of the levels of the Olympiads. That’s why most parents nowadays want their children to participate in the Olympiads.
Along with this, there are other reasons why parents encourage their children to participate in the Olympiads
- Parents see the Olympiads as a "training ground" for future competitive exams.
- Qualifying for the Olympiads gives children additional advantages when applying for further studies. Many institutions view qualifying Olympiads as a nice-to-have achievement for their prospective students; some are also believed to preferentially extend admission to such students.
- Parents also think that Olympiads promote such skills and abilities as critical thinking, analytical ability, etc.
- The questions asked in the test are structured into a relevant and engaging structure so that students do not want to run away from the numbers.
- The test is cleverly designed to help understand your child's level of giftedness by clearly showing areas of strength and weakness.
- Find out how your child did in comparison to the test, against others and against the best.
- Outstanding performances will be rewarded through certificates, ribbons, website citations, scholarships, custom T-shirts and of course, increased confidence.
- What's more, our team will write to your child's school (with your consent, of course) about their outstanding performances and send them your performances for the school's talent recognition.
- Competition questions are appropriate for the age of the pupils, they are interesting and challenging. Perhaps it provides a fairer and more accurate way to evaluate a candidate because all applicants are given a standardized test. The test is developed by professionals with decades of experience to ensure that only the most relevant is provided. Preparing for the test is not a burden because its syllabus is less advanced than other Olympiads and students can compete without special training or advanced knowledge.
Why Are SO Many Olympiads Coming Up?
While the intention of Olympiads may be quite honorable and noble, a lot of private sector companies are now exploiting parents’ sentiments in order to reap huge profits, and make money off young children giving up their play-time for practice time in order to ace these exams.
For the reasons discussed above, more and more parents are urging their children to participate in the Olympiads every year. As a result, many private sector companies are launching their own ‘Olympiads’, luring students and parents with such rewards as watches, tablets, prize money and educational trips abroad.
So why do parents still want their kids to participate in these Private Olympiads? Because more Olympiads means more chances for their child to increase skills, prove themselves and make their parents proud. And who wouldn’t want to be the proud parent of a smart, intelligent little child?
Are Olympiads Really a Good?
There is no one straight answer to this question. The Olympiads sounds like a great idea in theory. As parents, however, more and more of us are losing track of why the Olympiads are held in the first place. There are a number of serious considerations that we are missing and this is impacting our children. Everyone has its own opinion. To someone’s thinking, Olympiads may be the source of income for private companies and for other someone, Olympiads are just waste of time. But all these imaginations are on false aspect. Olympiads are neither the source of income nor waste of time. Olympiads are educational games prepares the child for future competitive exams.
Parents Are Making Olympiads a Prestige Issue
We’ve become so obsessed with making sure our kids excel in academics that we’ve prided ourselves on overlooking how their childhoods are becoming more stressful and high-pressure by the day. As parents, when we become overly ambitious and make the Olympiads a prestige affair, we essentially rob our children of their best years and force them to shoulder bigger-than-life dreams.
For example, the International Science Olympiad is held to discover the brightest students from around the world – the “diamonds”. But mining diamonds is very different from artificially compressing carbon in a lab to turn it into diamond, and that’s pretty much what the Private Olympiads are forcing parents to do to their kids. The Olympiads make us push our kids for the reward/pride of “owning a diamond”.
The III-Effects of Olympiads
- Children spend a disproportionate number of hours studying.
- They are burdened with pressure to perform well on these exams – a pressure that is often too high and unhealthy for their young minds and bodies.
- They are also presented with peer pressure and “competition” in a very negative and ugly light.
- The Olympiads, on the other hand, completely negate the Board of Education’s “continuous assessment” shift, which was made to eliminate stress from the lives of young minds.
The worst part is that the age at which children are forced to take these exams is decreasing every year. Children as young as 5 or 6 years old are being sent away to tuitions right after school gets over. Many educationists are condemning this.
