Organisation

The relationship to the IGU

The idea for an International Geography Competition was launched by the Commission on Geography Education of IGU. IGC however has no formal organisational structure. The IGC travels from country to country and the organisation in a host country is in the hands of a temporary committee.

Proposal:

  • to assure continuity and the passing on of experience, a formal structure is needed, for instance under the Commission on Geography Education
  • form an international co-ordinating committee with (at least) representatives from the present, past and the future host-country of the IGC. In that context it is advisable to decide soon which country will host the IGC in the year 2002.

Location

The previous IGC’s have been part of an IGU-congress. This seems to be a good formula: a congress generates a lot of activities and it it easier to raise funds. A host country of an IGU congress that does not have its National Geography Competition (or Olympiad as it is commonly called) is stimulated to do so. Since the IGU congresses take place all over the world, there are good opportunities to prevent IGC from becoming a regional affair. On the other hand, during an IGU Congress there is a heavy workload already.

Proposal:

  • organise IGC during an IGU Congress
  • since there is a regional conference in South Africa in the year 2002, South Africa could be asked to consider hosting an IGC. It would be a good thing to include Africa and it could be a stimulus for geography education in southern Africa.

Financial contribution

Apart from the travel costs from the home country to the Netherlands, no fee was asked from the participating countries in ’96. In ’98 the teams had to pay a fee of $ 300 per person on top of the travel costs.

Proposal:

  • keep the fee as low as possible
  • create a fund for less rich countries

Frequency

IGC is a bi-annual affair. As long as a limited number of countries participates, it is better to keep it that way.

Proposal:

  • decide what number of participating countries would justify to make IGC an annual affair
(c) www.geoolympiad.org - Onderwijscentrum VU - Joop van der Schee