Boost confidence by putting the fun back into arithmetic

This graduation ceremony for the Universal Concept of Mental Arithmetic System (UCMAS) programme, was held in Dubai recently.

The largest skill development programme in the UAE for children between the ages of four and 12, UCMAS graduates participate in a challenging two year arithmetic scheme, where students are taught how simple the subject can be if given half the chance.

Commenting on UCMAS milestones, the programme’s managing director for the UAE and Oman Soundari Raj, said: “So often we meet students who are discouraged by math, simply because they have not yet learned how easy it is to succeed in the subject. The UCMAS programme has been designed to boost confidence by putting the fun back into arithmetic.”

By using mental, visual and auditory skills, the students work hard to showcase their abilities and regularly participate in competitions amongst themselves. The competitions are designed to test the children’s mental strength and ability as well as their keen auditory sense as they calculate sizable sums of multi-digit numbers in just three seconds or less.

Prior to earning their well deserved laurels at the graduation ceremony, the students gain valuable exposure to competitions on both national and international levels which are held on an annual basis.

Internationally UCMAS has hosted over 100,000 young competitors since the first edition ran in 1994 in Malaysia. The UCMAS system is designed to help children improve their powers of calculation using the abacus, an age old tool to help children improve their powers of arithmetic by allowing them to visualise calculations as images, rather than numbers.