Kwabena is world champion

Story: Hadiza Nuhhu-Billa Quansah
Eleven-year-old Kwabena Asamoah made Ghana proud after beating 3000 other competitors to be crowned the World Champion, Intermediate A Category,  of the  2012 Universal Concept Mental Arithmetic System (UCMAS), an international competition held in Malaysia last month.
The international competition is an annual event organised by UCMAS Education Group. This year, it brought together children from the ages of five to 14  from all over the world to compete at different levels.
Last Tuesday, the Junior Graphic caught up  with Kwabena at the UCMAS Ghana office at Achimota in Accra to share in his success story.
 Kwabena, a Class Six  pupil of the Crown Prince Academy,  competed  with children from 54 other countries and answered 200 arithmetic sums within eight minutes.
Smart and eloquent Kwabena, who represented Ghana in the competition, started the UCMAS Abacus classes two years ago at the Dansoman Learning Centre.
"I started preparing myself for  the international competition by representing the Dansoman Centre in the UCMAS Mental Arithmetic Quiz show on GTV," he said. There, he showed an outstanding performance  to emerge the national champion after answering 200 questions within eight minutes.
For his prize, he was presented with trophies, certificates, medals and a full scholarship to complete the remaining levels of the UCMAS Abacus classes.
The Director of UCMAS Ghana Limited, Mr Girish Gurbani, said the essence of introducing Abacus to young children was to help eradicate the fear of Mathematics among children and boost their confidence.
"Basically, UCMAS Abacus enhances the listening skills of children and bolsters their creativity and imagination. With the great performance of our students in their respective schools we have no doubt they are on the pedestal of achieving enviable academic laurels," he added.