Irish students spent 54,000 minutes on Maths with the MATHletes Challenge during the Easter holidays

New figures out today from the MATHletes Challenge and Khan Academy show some great engagement levels by Irish school children over the last two weeks.The figures show that over the Easter holidays, when all schools were closed, pupils from 5^th & 6^th class in primary school and 1^st, 2^nd & 3^rd in secondary school, amassed a total of 54,000 minutes doing maths – over 900 hours in 2 weeks.

The Khan Academy is a non-profit organisation with a mission of providing a free world class education for anyone, anywhere. Their free online educational resources include practice problems, instructional lessons, and learning tools to support personalised education for users of all ages. As of January 2014, they have 10 million users per month and over 4 million practice problems completed each day.

As part of the Mathletes Challenge 2014, students have been competing individually and with their schools on Khan Academy, vying for a part of the €20,000 prize pot and for the overall title of Mathletes Challenge Champion 2014.

According to Kelly Kirkpatrick from the MATHletes Challenge “We have been blown away with the level of engagement with maths from Irish students. Kids are having fun with maths, and the impact it is having on learning both in and out of the classroom is staggering.”

Kelly Kirkpatrick from MATHletes continued “The figures show that the MATHletes Challenge 2014 has really struck a cord with students and also with their parents and teachers. These figures prove what we have been hearing throughout the Challenge: students are motivated like never before – they are eager complete more and more maths challenges and are using technology to take control of their own learning.”

The top 500 MATHletes from across the country will compete in-person at Provincial Finals on Saturday May 10th for a place in the National final. The finals are being hosted by Dublin City University (Leinster), Tyndall Institute (Munster), Donegal Education Centre (Ulster), Colaiste Bhaile Chlair (Connaught).