Mathematicians in
Australia came up with the idea to organize a competition that underlines the joy of mathematics and encourages mathematical problem-solving. A multiple-choice competition was created, which has been taking place in Australia since 1978. At the same time, both in
France and all over the world, a widely supported movement emerged towards the popularization of mathematics. The idea of a multiple-choice competition then sprouted from two French teachers, André Deledicq and Jean Pierre Boudine, who visited their Australian colleagues Peter O’Halloran and Peter Taylor and witnessed their competition. In 1990, they decided to start a challenge in France under the name Kangourou des Mathématiques in order to pay tribute to their Australian colleagues. The particularity of this challenge was the desire for massive distribution of documentation, offering a gift to each participant (books, small games, fun objects, scientific and cultural trips). The first Kangaroo challenge took place on May 15, 1991. Since it was immediately very successful, shortly afterward they spread the idea in
Europe. In May 1993, three teams of teachers from
Romania,
Poland and
Bulgaria participated in Kangaroo together with France. After that, Kangourou des Mathématiques invited mathematicians and organizers of mathematical competitions from several European countries. All of them were impressed by the increasing number of participants in the Kangaroo challenge in France: 120 000 in 1991, 300 000 in 1992, half a million in 1993. In seven countries –
Belarus,
Hungary,
The Netherlands,
Poland,
Romania,
Russia, and
Spain – teams of teachers decided to also organize the contest in 1994. It was a great success in all of these countries. An international competition promoting the dissemination of basic mathematical culture was born. Since then, the competition has spread around the world. Pupils from
Sweden first took part in 1999. By 2011, 860,000 pupils from 9,000 schools took part in
Germany, having grown rapidly from 549,000 in 2007. In 2014, the competition was hosted in
Latin America. In 2017, the Bulgarian association held a week-long Kangaroo summer camp. In Canada, math contest clubs for elementary school children teach "questions typical of the Math Kangaroo contest", starting with those with a visual component and helping to develop
logic and
spatial reasoning. Students in
Pakistan took part for the first time in 2005, the numbers increasing each year since. In 2009, the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette noted that the competition was very popular in Europe, and was "finding its way into the
United States".
Denmark first participated in 2015. == Association Kangourou Sans Frontières ==