Academic competitions - Poland schools. It's open to abuse.

The regional education authorities run competitions in various subjects for children in various age groups. The prizes can be worthwhile having - for example, free choice of high school (there's competitive entry based on internal school marks and an external exam at age 16).

Unfortunately, it's open to abuse. Often, the central figure behind the competition is a teacher of children who take part in the competition - and guess what? Those kids seem to do better!

I'm sorry, but for commonsense reasons I can't be more specific ... I have teenage kids!

Perhaps you might want to explain to us how those kids are helped in the regional finals which give the free entry to high school?

The competitions on a regional level are organised by teachers from the region - it's impossible for there to be corruption due to the way that it's all done. About the only issue is that at the school level, the children who have the same teacher as the organiser in-school will do better - but that's obvious!


Why not?

It's not a worthwhile prize. Easier is to prepare well for finishing exams than prepare for an Olimpiada of some academic subject.

the 'olimpiada' is no help to anyone, if the teachers aren't interested. and most aren't.