BBC: children aged six destined to learn chess in Armenia

The famous news agency BBC has recently published an article about Armenia stating that the country “is making chess compulsory in schools.”

Here what the article says in particular, “Every child aged six or over in Armenia is now destined to learn chess. The authorities there believe compulsory lessons will "foster schoolchildren's intellectual development" and improve critical thinking skills.”

The BBC states that “the country has plenty of reasons to believe in chess. It treats grandmasters like sports stars, championships are displayed on giant boards in cities and victories celebrated with the kind of frenzy most countries reserve for football. Chess is nothing less than a national obsession.

It may only have a population of 3.2 million, but Armenia regularly beats powerhouses such as Russia, China and the US and its national team won gold at the International Chess Olympiad in 2006 and 2008. Added to that, the Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has just been re-elected as chair of the Armenian Chess Federation,” it says, “Now the chess-mad country is investing nearly $1.5m (£920,000) to teach all of its children.”

The news agency quotes chief executive of Chess in Schools and Communities, who says that there are lots of reasons why chess has a positive impact on primary school children.

"Not only does it give children good thinking skills and improve concentration, memory and calculation, but it teaches children to take responsibility for their actions. There are also behavioural attitudes and social attributes to the game too. Children shake hands at the start, and although it's not deathly silent in classes, it's reasonably quiet and disciplined," the article reads.