The Ministry of Education and Training honoured a Vietnamese delegation of students at a ceremony in Hanoi on May 27 for their excellent performance at the 2013 Asia-Pacific Informatics Olympiad.

This is the first time Vietnamese students have attended the Asia-Pacific Informatics Olympiad. They obtained one gold, one silver and three bronze medals, ranking fourth in the medal chart.

Addressing the ceremony, Deputy Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Vinh Hien said the competition is an intellectual playing field for all students, adding that informatics is still a new sector in Vietnam; therefore younger generations’ contributions are needed to improve its application in the future.

This year’s Asian Informatics Olympiad was the first to be held online, with 500 contestants from 21 countries and territories taking part.

Ten gold medals from the competition went to students from China, the Republic of Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Vietnam.-VNA