Mathematics talent hunt project with scholarship – 05/06/2023 – Market

Leaving Belo Horizonte to attend higher education in Rio de Janeiro was not initially in the plans of Caio Lins, 21. A phone call, however, began to change the young man’s intentions in 2019.

At the time, the then high school student received an invitation from FGV (Fundação Getulio Vargas) to participate in the institution’s entrance exam, competing for a scholarship in Rio.

Caio accepted the challenge. He took the exam, was approved and was entitled to benefit from 2020. Today, he is in the fourth year of graduation in applied mathematics.

The invitation was not the work of fate. Caio is part of a group of young people contemplated by an FGV project for outstanding students in Obmep (Brazilian Mathematics Olympics for Public Schools).

This is the Talent Selection program, developed since 2017 by the CDMC (Center for the Development of Mathematics and Science), which is part of the educational institution.

After mapping these students in the country, the project invites them to take the entrance exam in Rio. If approved, students can choose one of the courses available in the Rio de Janeiro capital – the most sought after is applied mathematics.

The renewal of tuition fee exemption is associated with good performance in studies. In addition to the scholarship, the program also offers monthly financial aid for young people and even subsidized housing in hotels or associated lodgings.

“In high school, I already knew that I wanted to study mathematics or some related course”, says Caio, who moved to Rio about a year ago. Landing in the city was delayed because the first two years of classes took place remotely due to the pandemic.

The Talent Selection started with 11 students in 2017. The number has grown over the years and reached 80 admitted in 2023.

Currently, there are a total of around 200 young people studying through the initiative at FGV, according to César Camacho, director of the CDMC. He claims that the program is maintained with resources from the institution itself and donations from individuals.

The intention, says the director, is to continue expanding in the coming years. “This is not a social project. It is a project that aims at the student’s merit”, states Camacho.

“The goal is to serve public school students. The study program is very tough”, he adds.

On its website, FGV states that the students approved for the project stand out for their “extreme learning capacity” and show themselves as “new talents for the future of the country”. The group is made up of young people from different regions of Brazil.

According to Camacho, the initiative seeks to avoid wasting talent. When touching on this point, he mentions that the distance to large urban centers often prevents young people from the interior of the country from attending universities.

“Talent for mathematics and other sciences exists in public schools, but it is often wasted because it is not identified”, says the director.

Nicole dos Santos de Souza, 20, is also part of the group that joined the FGV program after being successful at Obmep. The student left the interior of Santa Catarina in 2022 to study applied mathematics in Rio.

She joined graduation earlier, in 2021, but the first year of classes had remote activities due to the health crisis of Covid-19. “I always had the dream of going to college far from home”, says Nicole, who was born in the municipality of Içara (190 km from Florianópolis).

Without the scholarship, entering higher education would be more difficult, evaluates the young woman. “The other option would be to try a federal university, but there wasn’t one close to home. So, [a bolsa] fell from the sky.”