UKMT 'pauses' most of its services including team maths challenges and mentoring

[noblegiraffe]

Something very odd seems to be going on at the UKMT and they have released a statement saying that they are pausing pretty much all of their activities apart from the individual maths challenges due to staff vacancies after covid. This means no mentoring, no team challenges, no summer schools, which is pretty devastating for bright maths students in terms of enrichment opportunities.

There seem to be accusations of maltreatment of volunteers being the real issue twitter.com/ridermeister/status/1562133372234862593?s=21&t=jGpHwy4I48k4DsAUZ_Lh7w

twitter.com/savetheukmt/status/1564287194470268929?s=21&t=jGpHwy4I48k4DsAUZ_Lh7w

(this is also apparently the reason why Junior Olympiad results aren't out yet).

I don't know what's going on, but I hope that it gets sorted quickly and normal service resumes.

That's a shame

But the statement is pretty clear to me - post-Covid they're broke, fundraising isn't bringing in enough and they can't afford to run those activities which make a loss.

Plus they lost staff during covid, so as well being unable to continue some activities for financial reasons, they need to develop their new-comers to be fully effective. Lots of places are having to deal with difficulties in recruitment (this might change if businesses have to reduce operations or even close because of energy bills and consumer downturn, but that's not a factor yet)

Yes the statement is clear but the posts by people involved with UKMT suggests that is not the real story.

I've just spent some time on Twitter following posts and links from the two @noblegiraffe gave.

It's not encouraging.

I've been wondering where the JMO results were - feels like DD sat it age age ago!
Lordy what a shame - the whole UKMT provision is so wonderful it would be a tragedy for it to be cut. I wish a wealthy maths minded benefactor (like Musk) could prop it up

I've also now clicked through on Twitter
It seems the JMO is not even marked yet 😮

DD & I had never heard of the UKMT until April when she sat a test at her new secondary & did really well out of nowhere. The sparkle has really faded with the lack of a JMO result. It's a distant memory now we are into a new school year. I assumed her teachers were just being slow to communicate results ☹️