JIMCOBSA - Junior International Mathematics Competition Organising Body for South Africa

JIMCOBSA was launched in 2021 to facilitate national training and selection of teams to represent South Africa at the International Mathematics Competition (IMC) for primary and high school learners. The first national training for IMC occurred with the creation of JIMCOBSA, although there were attempts earlier at selecting and training teams at a national level. The hope was that the creation of JIMCOBSA would not only nationalize the selection of merit-based teams, but would also lead to improved training and better results.

This phenomenon was not unique to South Africa, because as the IMC expanded in popularity, many countries had to move from regional to national teams. In order to facilitate this process, the IMC Executive Council launched the International Mathematics Assessments for Schools (IMAS) in 2011. The IMAS aim to help countries select merit based national teams in a fair and transparent selection process. The IMAS forms part of the SA selection process. Furthermore, although JIMCOBSA is responsible for selecting IMC teams, we share our selection results with Durban and Bloemfontein to help them select city teams for the Po Leung Kuk competition.

Although JIMCOBSA has managed to nationalize the training and the process of selecting merit-based teams, we are unfortunately still struggling to improve results. Due to financial implications, especially when the IMC takes place overseas, the top selected learners have not always accepted the invitation to represent SA. Although we have contemplated sponsorship, with 32 learners usually participating per year, securing sponsorship for IMC is improbable. A further minor contributing factor has been from time to time that the strongest high school learners had to pull out of IMC teams due to clashes with the International Mathematical Olympiad and/or Pan-African Mathematical Olympiad.

JIMCOBSA passionately beliefs in the encouragement and development of girls and although we have had many girls in our IMC teams, we believe still more can be done. In order to encourage and develop girls, especially after grade 10 when IMC is no longer an option, JIMCOBSA has branched out to include the European Girls' Mathematical Olympiad (EGMO) as part of our activities. This is an event for girls from Europe, but the host country can allow non-European countries to also participate on a case by case basis. JIMCOBSA secured sponsorship to send a team to the EGMO in Kosovo in 2025 as well as run sponsored training Camps for girls.

Since the EGMO team size is restricted to 4 girls, securing sponsorship is more manageable. However, in order to guarentee that the EGMO team will always be purely merit based unlike IMC, JIMCOBSA will only send an EGMO team when fully sponsored.