Sverdlovsk region has held the first regional selection of the candidates for the Clever and Wise TV Olympiad

SVERDLOVSK REGION

 

For the first time in the 30 years of the program's existence, Sverdlovsk region has held an absentee regional selection for the Clever and Wise All-Russian TV Olympiad (Russian: Umnitsy i Umniki). 70 tenth-graders became the participants of the first qualifying round of the intellectual competitions in the Urals. 

 

On February 18, they wrote essays on one of the five offered topics on the Urals at sites in Ekaterinburg, Polevskoy, Novouralsk, Nizhny Tagil, and the village of Achit. Following the main part, those who had chosen the venue of the Golden Section foundation in the capital of the Urals had an opportunity to meet Saltanat Ermukhambetova, an invited expert and future coach of the winners of the absentee phase, RusBusinessNews reports.

 

The winner of the Clever and Wise All-Russian TV Olympiad and the student of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations will prepare the Sverdlovsk region schoolchildren who passed on to the in-person stage of the first regional selection in the Urals.

"The kids will be required to demonstrate knowledge that goes far beyond the school curriculum. I want to tell them how to look for sources and navigate through them, how to find what might be on the track in the vast amount of information. Since the Clever and Wise is a television Olympiad, you also need to learn how to speak in front of a jury, not to get nervous at an eloquence contest. But my main goal is to show that it's not that scary, and everyone has a chance to win and get into the Moscow State Institute of International Relations if you prepare properly," said Saltanat Ermukhambetova.

 

The lists of those who have succeeded in the competition will be available on March 10 on the websites of the Golden Section foundation and the Empathy foundation of Mikhail Shelkov, a shareholder of VSMPO-AVISMA Corporation. In April or May, these schoolchildren will be invited to the second (in-person) phase of the selection. It will be held in a format based on the rules of the All-Russian Television Olympiad: with semi-final and final agons, insignias, agonists, and theorists. Yuri Vyazemsky, the author and the host of the show, will assess the participants together with the jury.

The three winners: the agonists, who showed the best result in the final round (agon), and theorists, who scored the highest number of points (insignias), without additional tests will take part in the Clever and Wise All-Russian TV Olympiad in Moscow. Teenagers' trip to the show TV filming will be paid by Mikhail Shelkov's foundation. In addition, Empathy will pay 100 thousand rubles to each of the three winners of the regional selection. Students from the Sverdlovsk region who enter the Moscow State Institute of International Relations after the Olympiad will receive a special scholarship of 50,000 roubles a month.

 

Organisers of the Olympiad in the Sverdlovsk region are the region's Ministry of Education and Youth Policy, Mikhail Shelkov's Empathy Charitable Foundation, and the Golden Section Foundation for the Support of Talented Children and Youth. The project is also supported by leading educational institutions of the region – the Ural Institute of Management – Branch of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, the Ural Federal University named after B.N. Yeltsin, the Humanitarian University, the Ural State Pedagogical University, the Institute for Development of Education of the Sverdlovsk Region, Palace of Youth Supplementary Education Center of the Sverdlovsk Region. The Olympiad can become an example of effective collaboration between the regional education system and a private foundation that underscores the shared interest of the public, business, and government in supporting teachers, especially during the Year of Educators and Mentors in Russia.

 

Photo: Empathy Charity Foundation Press Service