Teen Chinese ‘maths genius’ was helped by teacher to ace global contest, probe finds

A Chinese fashion design student hailed as a “genius” for her score in a national maths competition achieved the results with her teacher’s help, according to investigations by her school and the event organiser, who said she “did not win a prize”.
The Lianshui Secondary Vocational School in eastern Jiangsu province said on Sunday (Nov 3) that Wang Ruihui, the teacher of Jiang Ping, had been given a warning over the matter and disqualified from this year’s awards for teachers.
Ping came into the national limelight in June, after beating hundreds of competitors from prestigious schools to rank 12th in the Alibaba Global Mathematics Competition’s preliminaries.
The competition is held each year at Alibaba’s Damo Academy in eastern China’s Hangzhou and attracts contestants from some of the top schools around the world. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
Ping, who was 17 at the time of the competition, was held up as an example of someone who could overcome her modest educational background to achieve major success.
But the national attention prompted scrutiny and other contestants questioned her scores and maths competence.
In a joint letter sent to the organising committee, 39 other finalists said Ping “made several apparent writing mistakes” while solving a problem on a blackboard in a documentary video released by Damo Academy.
“She seemed unfamiliar with these mathematical expressions and symbols,” the contestants wrote, alleging that Ping was helped by her teacher.
In a statement on Sunday, the event’s organising committee said an investigation found that Wang “provided help” to the students under his care, violating the rules.
According to competition rules, the qualifying round is an open-book test, allowing contestants to refer to online and offline materials. But discussion with others is clearly prohibited.
The competition committee apologised, acknowledging shortcomings in management of the event and pledging improvements.
The committee also announced its winners on Sunday, recognising 86 participants for their achievements.
The top five gold medallists were from Peking University, Tsinghua University and the University of Maryland, College Park.
The Lianshui vocational school said it would help teachers and students to better “establish correct values and concepts of success”.
It also asked the public to be forgiving of Ping, who stood out in the competition as the only participant from a vocational school up against the best maths brains from top institutions in China and overseas.
Vocational schools generally take in students who do not make the grade to go to high school and so cannot sit the all-important university entrance examination, or gaokao.
Many internet users said the incident showed that “integrity is more important than talent”.
“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 commenter said.
This article was first published on SCMP.