Chess at School
The project consisted in introducing chess as a subject into the school curriculum and teaching it in experimental classes of 18 schools in Almaty, Kyzylorda, Pavlodar and Pavlodar Region. It also included a study on the psychodiagnostics of the cognitive development of children who studied chess under the project in comparison with children from control classes where the subject was not taught. The project was carried out by the Shakhmardan Yessenov Foundation in conjunction with the Kazakhstan Chess Federation for the second, third and fourth grades.
The study results showed that the pupils who studied chess demonstrated a higher level of intelligence, creativity and academic performance after three years in comparison with their peers who did not study the game. In the three years in which the Chess at School programme was implemented, the foundation provided 58 secondary schools in Kazakhstan with equipment for chess rooms; 18 schools received printed textbooks, while the rest got electronic versions. A report on the results of the programme was submitted to the Ministry of Education and Science of Kazakhstan for the introduction of chess as a variable subject into the curricula of the country’s secondary schools.
Results of the Chess at School project. News
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