Published: April 28, 2026
MONROVIA — For the first time in the country’s history, Liberia will send a national team to the Pan-African Mathematics Olympiad, with six students chosen from about 600 competitors after months of contests and an intensive training camp that ended this week in Paynesville.
The six students, three males and three females, were selected during the closing ceremony of the 2026 AOA Rising Stars Math Camp, held at the Baptist Seminary along the Roberts International Airport Highway. They will travel to Côte d’Ivoire from June 27 to July 4 to represent Liberia at PAMO, the continent’s leading secondary school mathematics competition.
The moment is a debut, not just for the students, but for the country.
How Six Students Were Chosen From Six Hundred
The selection process started with a county-wide competition throughout Montserrado, which attracted about 600 students from 40 schools, with 21 ultimately participating. The top performers from that round moved on to a national contest held in March, resulting in 18 finalists. An additional 12 students were recommended by leading mathematics educators, forming a group of 30 who entered the five-day training camp.
At the camp, students underwent intensive instruction in algebra, combinatorics, number theory and geometry, with continuous assessment used to identify the six who would make the final team.
Hassan M. Bawor, an official with the Liberia Olympiad Foundation, which organized the initiative alongside the African Olympiad Academy, described the process and made the stakes of the June competition clear.
“These amazing students are going to go to Ivory Coast in June this year, hopefully to represent Liberia at the Pan-African Math Olympiad,” Bawor said. “We want to go this year and not just to participate — we want to go and win.”
Two More Months of Preparation
The team’s work is not finished. LiOF Country Engagement Representative MacMillan Vaye said the six selected students will undergo two additional months of intensive preparation before departing for Côte d’Ivoire, including online training sessions and a planned exchange program with Sierra Leone.
“The Pan-African Math Olympiad will be held from June 27 to July 4, so in the time between now and then, we are going to intensively prepare the team,” Vaye said.
Expectations Grounded in Reality
The organizers are ambitious but measured. AOA Executive Director Arun Shanmuganathan, whose Rwanda-based institution offers full scholarships and advanced training to high-performing African students in mathematics and STEM fields, praised the resilience of both the students and the organizers while offering a candid assessment of what a successful debut might look like.
“If Liberia can get an honorable mention this year, I will be very, very proud, because many countries, the first time they go, the entire team gets zero,” Shanmuganathan said.
He also pointed to the longer-term opportunity that Olympiad performance can open. Top finishers at competitions of this level, he noted, regularly attract full scholarships from institutions including MIT, Harvard and Oxford — a pathway that remains largely unknown to most Liberian students.
Founded Last Year, Looking Beyond Montserrado
The Liberia Olympiad Foundation was established in November 2025, modeled in part on Rwanda’s structured Olympiad system, which has produced internationally competitive students from a country that was itself rebuilding its education sector not long ago. LiOF’s stated mission is to identify and nurture mathematically gifted Liberian students through merit-based programs.
This year’s competition was limited to Montserrado County. Organizers say that is just a starting point, not a limit. Plans are already in progress to expand the initiative to all 15 counties, aiming to create a nationwide network of problem-solvers able to compete at continental and global levels.
The Ministry of Education has pledged support, including help with travel documents and official representation for the team. Assistant Minister for Science, Technology, Vocational, and Inclusive Education Nathaniel K. Cisco Jr. attended the closing ceremony and encouraged the students to see their selection as the start of a longer commitment.
Among the parents present was Dawuda Kromah, whose daughter is one of the six finalists.
“My heart is full of pride, seeing my daughter and these young people participating in such a program,” he said.
Liberia National Students Union President James K. Washington framed the initiative in terms of what the country needs from its young people going forward.
“The future of this country is basically in the hands of us, the young people,” he said, calling for expanded partnerships to bring the program to students outside Monrovia.
The team departs in June. For a country that has never before sent students to compete in mathematics at the continental level, the trip itself is already a milestone.
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