I Want to Be an Astronaut, Says 14-year-old Math Genius

Yosra Soleimani picks up the phone. The first thing you notice is her loud, confident voice, surprising for a 14-year-old. But to win the World Mental Math Program, Yosra has had to practice on her own all year, after her online classes for school, and take school lessons during breaks between her practice sessions.

This is the fifth time Yosra, a Baluchi teenager girl, has won first place in the World Mental Math Program – becoming a three-time world champion in the process. Her name, Yosra, means lightness and comfort after hardship.

Yosra, the world number in Universal Concept of Mental Arithmetic System (UCMAS) competitions, also known as the Abacus-based mental math program, is her parents’ only child. Her mother is an elementary school teacher and her father teaches technology-related courses in a secondary school.

When we ask Yosra where she is from, she says with the same exemplary confidence and articulacy: "I am originally from Fanuj in Sistan and Baluchestan province, but I was born in Chabahar, and I have lived in Golestan province since the first grade. Last year, because of the [educational] facilities available in Tehran, my mother and father decided to come to Tehran so that I could benefit from using them.”

Yosra has been a world champion in math competitions for five years in a row. She says she is grateful to her teacher owes her success to her training regime.

"I was in school until noon each day this year, because the classes were online," Yosra tells IranWire, about how she prepares for her competitions. "After that I would start practicing; for example, when I was training for an hour for a competition, I was studying at school during my break. I can do several things at the same time. For this reason, for example, I also took reading lessons while practicing for the competition. Sometimes I do a few things together and it takes less time because of that."

But the high cost of training and participating in competitions are borne by Yosra’s family, who have paid for her training and travels for the past five years, and have not been supported by the Ministry of Education or any other government agency.

"We have to pay the expenses ourselves," Yosra says. ”Last year, someone promised to support [attending a competition in Cambodia] but it paid for only half of the costs ... Therefore, the cost of regular travel was borne by us, which became 13 million tomans [$600]. The Ministry of Education, nor any other body, does not support me. When there is an election some people say that they will support us. They support us for a month or two, for their names to be registered in the media, but after that they forget all their promises."

She continues: "I was invited by the education department of Sistan and Baluchestan province, which offered a salary, saying that I would be a consultant, but nothing happened. The media occasionally reports that some department or another supported me. But I did not see any support from anyone this year. They just come and take pictures for their ads and leave."

The training is not cheap. For these competitions, according to the UCMAS website in Canada, mental arithmetic training should start at the age of five, or at the same time as starting school. Training revolves around performing, quickly and correctly, the four main arithmetic operations and related techniques.

Yosra’s parents say the preparation for math competitions, as well as language and football classes, is five million tomans a month. But in the 20 days before competitions this reaches 10 million tomans. Last year alone, and the fourth time Yosra participated in the World Abacus Math Competition and became a world champion, her family spent 150 million tomans. This included the training and preparation classes as well as other extracurricular activities designed to motivate Yosra ahead of the competition.

Yosra has always been a public school student and has placed no additional burdens or costs on the Ministry of Education. But a brief Internet search shows that the website of the Ministry of Education and the Voice of the Teacher, as well as state news agencies, including the English IRNA and even the Ghatreh website, have made the most of her name and success.

Yosra, the Baloch student who, like many of Balochistan's leading talents has had to leave her home, seeking opportunity elsewhere because of the deprivation in her native province, says her main competitors are also Iranians.

”There is a student from Golestan who is very strong. Until last year, when we competed, we could see our competitors. My rivals were from all over the world, such as Germany, India, Palestine, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, but the Iranians are the strongest,” Yosra says.

She continues: "Last year, there were very few Iranian participants in the world championships, so we could not get a ranking as a team. But before that, the Iranian team had won first place three times. This shows that my competitors are Iranians themselves. In my opinion, the understanding and intelligence Iranians have is the best. I may be bigoted, but I feel the Iranians are smarter."

Yosra says that, in the future, she wants to be an astronaut and to explore the sky, other planets and outer space. Overcoming challenges – such as her family finding the resources for her training and travels, despite the lack of official support – has been key to her success.

Yosra mentions that her name was chosen by her grandfather, taken from one of the verses of Surah Al-Sharh in the Quran, which says: "After every hardship comes ease and comfort."

She added: "My grandfather wanted me to remember, every time I heard my name, that after hardship comes comfort and light, and the end of the night is the bright day."