Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News – 04-10-2017
While mathematics may be a challenging subject for many people, a 10-year-old Durban boy has become abacus maths world champion.
The Mercury Newspaper reports that Yahya Ballim topped his category at the Global Association of Japanese Soroban and Mental Arithmetic (Gajsma) competition in Bangkok, Thailand last week.
About 400 children took part in the competition.
The paper reports Ballim obtained the most correct answers to addition, subtraction, division and multiplication sums using only the ancient Japanese abacus.
Ballim said: “I was very nervous, but I just did my best.”
Ballim’s father Abdul told the paper his son’s love for maths blossomed after they enrolled Yahya him in an Abagility Maths Club for weekly lessons in Grade 1.
“He picked it up so quickly and became very adept in a short space of time, so that, in his first year of participation, he won the champion of champions.”
According to the Mercury, Ballim is so fast in calculating sums with the abacus, he beat the papers journalist on a calculator.
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