What is Olympiad?

Olympiads are a kind of competitive exam, held across schools, to tap exceptional students with the best of potential, talent, aptitude, and IQ.

Olympiad exams are a gateway to let a student learn their educational strengths. These exams enhance the student’s learning capacity, logical reasoning, and scientific ability. During these exams, the subjects covered are- science, maths, computers, or any other languages such as English or Hindi. Based on the national or international level, they can observe and work upon their significant weaknesses, which boost up their strengths. It boosts their confidence to improve themselves academically.

Olympiad Meaning

The literal meaning of Olympiad from dictionary is "an occasion when the ancient or modern Olympic Games were or are held."

In the context of Olympiad Exams, Olympiad exams or Olympiads are the means for students to compete with other students on a similar educational level. Such exams promote the learning of skills in subjects like mathematics, science, computer technology or English language among students.

The Original 'International Science Olympiad'

The earliest of Olympiads we know about are a group of competitions collectively known as the International Science Olympiads. To be selected to compete in the International Science Olympiad, a student must first qualify in the National Science Olympiad, which is held across all schools in a country.

Typically each participating school first holds a screening round to select its best students, who are then sent to participate in the National Science Olympiad, following which they may stand a chance to compete internationally.

Why Are Olympiads So Popular Among Parents?

Participating in and winning any kind of competition - be it a simple gully cricket match, or the World Cup - is one of the best feelings in the world. Competitions award merit, performance, excellence - quite literally, the best in a human being.

However, it takes a lot to be chosen as the best of the best. And so the chances of a student decrease as the number of participants increase. Think about it: what is the chance that a random student will turn out to be not only the brightest student of his school, but also his city, state, country, and probably one of the brightest students in the world?

It might hence be understandable that: a lot of pride is associated with a child qualifying at any of the Olympiad levels. Hence most parents now-a-days want their children to participate in Olympiads.

Along with that, other reasons why parents urge their children to participate in Olympiads are:

• Parents view Olympiads as a 'training ground' for future competitive exams.
• Qualifying in an Olympiad gives children extra benefit while applying for further studies. Many instituitions view qualifying Olympiads as a 'good to have' achievement of their prospective students; it is also believed that some preferentially extend admissions to such students.
• Parents also think Olympiads promote such skills and abilities as critical thinking, analysing ability, etc.
• Our current schooling pattern does not conduct any kind of exams until the last couple of years of schooling (since we are currently following the 'continuous assessment' pattern). This leaves parents clueless about their child's true potential and aptitude for a very long time, and they view Olympiads as a chance to do just that.

Finally, it has been claimed that Olympiads can act as a great morale booster. According to Bangalore-based programmer Vikash Anil of Olympiad Helper, "Even when students don't win, their confidence grows."

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 above discussed reasons, more and more parents are urging their children to appear in Olympiad exams each year. As a result, many private sector companies are starting their own 'Olympiads' and luring students and parents alike with such rewards as watches, tablets, prize money, and educational trips abroad.

So why do parents still want their children to appear for these private Olympiads? Because more number of Olympiads means more number of chances for their child to prove himself, and make his parents proud. And who doesn't want to be the proud parent of a smart, intelligent young child?

Are So Many Olympiads Really a Good Idea?

There is no one straight answer to this question. Olympiads, in theory, sound like a brilliant idea. However, as parents, more and more of us are losing sight of why Olympiads are conducted in the first place. There are a number of serious considerations we are missing out on, and this is impacting our children.

Parents are making Olympiads a prestige issue

We have become so obsessed with ensuring that our kids excel in academics and 'do us proud' that we overlook how their childhood is becoming more stressful and high-pressure by the day. When we become overambitious as parents and turn Olympiads into a prestige issue, we basically rob our children of their best years and force them to shoulder larger than life dreams.

We have become so obsessed with ensuring that our kids excel in academics and 'do us proud' that we overlook how their childhood is becoming more stressful and high-pressure by the day. When we become overambitious as parents and turn Olympiads into a prestige issue, we basically rob our children of their best years and force them to shoulder larger than life dreams.

For example, the International Science Olympiad is held with the view of discovering the brightest students from across the globe - the 'diamonds'. However, mining for diamonds is very different from artificially compressing carbon in a lab to convert it into a diamond, and that is pretty much what private Olympiads are forcing parents to do to their children. Olympiads are forcing us to pressurise our children, for the reward/pride of 'owning a diamond'.

The Ill-Effects of Olympiads

• Children are spending unreasonable number of hours studying.
• They are being burdened with the pressure of performing well in these exams - a pressure that is often too high and unhealthy for their young minds and bodies.
• They are also being introduced to peer pressure and 'competition' in a very negative and ugly light.
• Olympiads in turn are completely negating the Education Board's move of 'continuous assessment', which was made with the view of eliminating stress from the lives of young minds.

Whats worse is, the age at which children are being compelled to take these exams keep dropping with each passing 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.

Benefits of Olympiad Exams

Olympiad Examinations help to identify a child's capability and real potential that may help him survive better in today's modern competitive world. They motivate students to endeavor for better and deeper understanding of scientific facts so as to enhance their reasoning, analytical and problem solving skills. They also bring out the areas lacking proficiency so that so that a proper orientation can be given to improve in that area.

1. These Olympiad exams are ultimately profitable for many students. From the 1st till the 12th grade, international or just national level, it guides and aids the students in numerous ways.
2. They might not quickly grasp the overall concepts that a student learns in the class environment. But these Olympiad exams indeed does have a way to help these students to understand various concepts in a much better way. Their question patterns are unusual.
3. When a student goes into a competition where they have to perform nationally or internationally, automatically an excellent level of exposure gets absorbed by them.
4. Many students have zero clues as to what are their strengths, or what are they good at or weak? This exam aids them to adventure on their academic skills and capability skills.
5. Critical thinking is majorly enhanced. And these Olympiads refine it more.
6. Olympiad exams are great enhancers to boost up the various reasoning capacities of the child.
7. It helps them to explore and work upon their weaknesses throughout the exam.
8. It not only focuses on creative, critical, educational skills but also helps to polish up intellectual skills. So, that a student understands the problem deeply and thinks it through rationally. That is, the more scientific facts also get exciting.
9. They are perfect to test a students' conceptual understanding of the subject.
10. Improves the students' problem solving ability and challenges them to think analytically.
11. Prepares them for future competitive exams by testing a student's aptitude as well as the knowledge of a particular subject.
12. Provides exposure to students at the national as well as international platforms.
13. Instills the quality of hard work in the students by pushing them to prepare hard for the exam and improve their result.
14. Students' performance in school is also improved as Olympiads sharpen their thinking and learning process which helps them to grasp the concepts taught in schools better.

WAYS TO REGISTER for OLYMPIAD EXAMS

• The registering ways are straightforward. Just follow the below steps-
• The school provides the registration form for the students to fill in from classes 1-12.
• Therefore, there are ways to register for these exams through online payment options individually.
• After filling the forms offline or online, they notify all the students by the exam dates with the eligibility criteria.
• Thus, the students receive the syllabus and start preparing to enter the national or international level.