Johannesburg has been awarded the illustrious title of host city for this year's World Maths Day on 3 March.

World Maths Day was launched in March 2007 with the aim of combining education and internet use to unite school learners around the globe in a competition to answer more than 10-million maths-related questions in 48 hours.

The 2009 event, hosted by Sydney, Australia, attracted two-million participants from 204 countries. The number of questions answered in 48 hours was 452,681,681.

The World Maths Day competition is organized by Mathletics, the world's largest online global mathematics learning site. Developed by Australian-based 3P Learning, it allows learners anywhere in the world who have internet access to enter, have fun and stand a chance of winning prizes.

Rob Masefield, South African general manager of 3P Learning, says that during the competition entrants get 60 seconds to answer as many mental arithmetic questions as they can. They score one point for every correct answer. The difficulty of the questions varies according to age.

"The actual World Maths Day Challenge commences the moment it is 3 March 2010 on the International Date Line and concludes 48 hours later when it is no longer 3 March anywhere in the world."

Registration for the competition is free and opened on 1 February. Learners can practise on the site in February to prepare for the competition. "The challenge is open to school-age children including home-schoolers. Individual as well as school prizes are awarded at the end of the competition," says Masefield.

"Johannesburg is a world-class city with an African soul and we are very excited to host this event, especially since it is such a big year for South Africa," said Johannesburg Tourism CEO, Lindiwe Mahlangu. "Encouraging learners to enjoy maths is vital for any country and this competition offers an amazing opportunity to do this. We plan to show learners around the world just how exciting Jozi is as a destination and will be endorsing the importance of quality maths education through the competition," she said.

Founded in 2003, 3P Learning is at the forefront of online mathematics learning for school-age children. Its flagship learning platform, Mathletics, is used by more than a million learners worldwide. The Mathletics platform includes a game engine which enables learners around the world to compete against one another live in answering mental arithmetic questions.

To register, participants can go to: http://www.worldmathsday.com/2010/Default.aspx