In 2005, the Ministry of Education issued a regulation forbidding state-run primary and junior middle schools from offering Olympic math courses. It later cancelled the policy of including Olympic math on school entrance examinations. Likewise in 2010, the ministry cancelled a regulation that the winners of Mathematics Olympiads could be recommended for admission to junior middle schools to remove some of the heavy study burden from students.
The Chengdu government has achieved a huge success since it issued harsh regulations banning Olympic math training in 2009. Local authorities prohibit state-run schoolteachers from working part-time to teach Olympic math and have removed school headmasters who give weight to Olympic math performance in student admissions.
For most primary students in Chengdu, this came as a huge relief.
