Investigation: 'Math prodigy' assisted by teacher

The 2024 Alibaba Global Mathematics Competition announced the award winners' name list on Sunday, and Jiang Ping, a female student from Lianshui Secondary Vocational School in Jiangsu province, was not among the 86 winners of golden, silver and bronze medals, and honorable mentions.

Earlier this year 17-year-old Jiang and her supervisor, a teacher surnamed Wang from the school drew wide public attention when the student ranked 12th position in the qualifiers of the competition and was shortlisted alongside contestants from esteemed institutions such as Peking University, MIT and Cambridge in the whole world, for the final round of the Alibaba Global Mathematics Competition. While excited netizens in China called her the girl prodigy, questions about her incredibly high score and integrity began to emerge on Chinese social media.

The Lianshui Secondary Vocational School released the findings of the investigation of the incident, and announced on Sunday that teacher Wang provided assistance to the student he supervised in the qualifiers, violating the rules of the qualifiers on "prohibiting discussions with others".

The school said in a briefing that it gave Mr. Wang an admonishment and canceled his qualification for the year-end evaluation. The school also called on the public to give protection and tolerance to the juvenile students.

The competition organizers also made a public apology on Sunday and said the incident "exposed the imperfect competition system and the lack of rigorous management."