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This year’s 4th NTU STEM Competition for Secondary School Students in Malaysia Promotes Taiwan’s Higher Education

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Deputy Representative James Buu (4th left) at the closing ceremony of the National Secondary School Programming Contest 2024 Grand Final

The National Secondary School Programming Contest 2024, was jointly organized by the Alumni Association of National Taiwan University, Malaysia (AANTUM), National Taiwan University (NTU), and Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), with support from Taiwan’s Ministry of Education. This nationwide competition in Malaysia was held to promote Information Technology and tertiary study in Taiwan.

The competition has been conducted for four years now, since 2021. This year, 700 students from 52 secondary schools all over Malaysia took part. Among the 180 students who had successfully advanced to the final, a cross-school team from Methodist Boys' School Penang and Tsun Jin High School won the Grand Final of the competition which was held at Chung Hua High School Seremban on September 16. They were awarded a cash prize of 3,000 Malaysian ringgit.

James Buu, Deputy Representative at TECO in Malaysia, was invited to attend the closing ceremony. In his remarks there, he explained a main purpose of this competition. Technology enhances learning opportunities and improves the studying experience of young people nowadays and it allows students to showcase their extraordinary programming skills. He encouraged students to appreciate the resources they have and continue to pursue innovation.

Mr. Chew Kian Keong, the president of AANTUM, further explained that an aim of the programming contest is to provide a communication platform and foster secondary school students' logical thinking and problem-solving abilities. Learning with students from different schools will facilitate software and hardware exchanges between urban and rural middle schools and lead to and improvements. All participating students have to take the qualifying exam, and students who pass the qualifying exam are eligible to form teams and participate in the preliminaries and finals.

Ms. Charlin Chang, Director of the Education Division of TECO in Malaysia, said that it’s essential for students to develop digital literacy, especially in this rapidly-expanding artificial intelligence (AI) era. She praised the forethought of the organizers for conducting STEM-related competitions to assist students to maintain pace with the competitive environment of the future world and also get an in-depth understanding of the teaching and learning resources in NTU, one of the prestigious universities in Taiwan. She welcomed the students to pursue their tertiary studies and develop their talents in Taiwan.  

A NTU Department of Information Engineering team, led by Professor Michael Hsin-Mu Tsai, NTU Deputy Vice President for Academic Affairs collaborated with Professor Ts Dr Liew Soung Yue, Dean of UTAR Faculty of Information and Communication Technology (FICT) and his team, forming a combined team of 30 people. These people undertook the setting of the contest questions and invigilation of the competition from the preliminary contests to the finals, ensuring the fairness and professional standards of the competition.

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