China’s 17-Year-Old Maths “Prodigy” Was Assisted By Teacher To Ace The Global Contest, Probe Finds

A 17-year-old student in China hailed as a “genius” for her score in a maths competition cheated, competition organisers said. According to the South China Morning Post, Jiang Ping, a fashion design student from a rural town in Jiangsu province, came into the limelight in June after securing 12th rank in the Alibaba Global Mathematics Competition’s preliminaries. She was the first finalist since the contest began in 2018 to have come from a lowly vocational school. The majority of the 800 finalists came from elite universities. 

The competition results turned Ms Ping into an overnight sensation, with many calling her a “prodigy” on social media, per SCMP. However, the attention also prompted scrutiny as other contestants questioned her scores and maths competence. 

In a joint letter sent to the organising committee in June, other finalists alleged that the 17-year-old had made “several apparent writing mistakes” in an online video and that she “seemed unfamiliar with these mathematical expressions and symbols”. They demanded an investigation into Ms Ping. They also called for her answers to the preliminary test questions to be made public.

On Sunday, the event’s organising committee said an investigation found that Ms Ping achieved the results with her teacher’s help. It said that the teenager had violated competition rules in the preliminary round, by receiving help from her teacher, who was also a contestant himself. “This has exposed problems like inadequacies in the competition format and the lack of rigour in supervision. We sincerely apologise,” organisers said in a statement, per the BBC. 

Ms Ping’s school, Lianshui Secondary Vocational School, also confirmed that Wang Ruihui, the teacher of Jiang Ping, had helped the 17-year-old and that Wang had been given a warning and disqualified from teachers’ awards for the year. The statement also called for leniency and protection for the teenager. 

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The competition committee apologised, acknowledging shortcomings in the management of the event and pledging improvement, the outlet reported. The committee also announced its winners on Sunday, recognising 86 participants for their achievements. 

Meanwhile, on social media, Sunday’s revelation sparked a wave of criticism of Ms Ping and her teacher. “Mathematics is objective and cold. You can cheat for once and fool all the people who know little of mathematics, but you cannot fool all of the mathematicians in the game,” one user said. 

However, some users spoke up for the teenager, arguing that the bigger responsibility lay with her school and teacher. “Jiang Ping is not innocent, that’s without question. But who are the worst parties in this? The adults brought this child along to do a bad deed, and let her suffer all the consequences,” said one user. 

“Even if the whole thing was faked, Jiang Ping was not the mastermind behind it. She should not be burned at the stake,” commented another.