Rules & Guidelines

The Pathways Challenge is open to students aged 12–15 years old, enrolled in Grade 7, 8, or 9 at any recognized school worldwide.

Students may participate individually or as part of a school team. Individual participants must provide their school name during registration (this will be verified).

Parental or guardian consent is required for all participants, as all contestants are minors.

The competition is organized in three tiers:

Round 1 — Country Preliminary (Online): Multiple choice questions and a short essay. Both are system-graded. Content covers 50% values/character education and 50% academic subjects.

Round 2 — Regional/Global Finals (Hybrid): Qualified students submit a presentation via PowerPoint or short video. Evaluated by expert judges at physical venues or online.

Multiple Choice: Timed test with randomized questions and answer options. Auto-saved every 30 seconds. Tab-switching is detected — three violations result in automatic submission.

Essay: Written response to a prompt. Word limit is specified for each question. Auto-saved every 30 seconds. Deadline-enforced — late submissions are not accepted.

Scoring: MCQ and essay scores are combined using weights set by the competition organizers. The qualification threshold for Finals is announced before each competition.

Academic Integrity: All essays are screened for plagiarism and AI-generated content. Flagged submissions are reviewed by our academic team. Violations may result in disqualification.

Submission: Upload a PowerPoint presentation (.pptx, max 50MB) or a short video (.mp4/.mov, max 200MB, max 5 minutes). Alternatively, provide a YouTube or Google Drive link.

Deadline: Submissions must be uploaded before the deadline set by your Country Coordinator. Late submissions are blocked by the system.

Replacement: You may replace your submission before the deadline. Previous versions are kept in version history.

Judging: Each submission is reviewed by at least two judges using a rubric-based scoring system. Judges provide written feedback. Student and school identities are hidden from judges to prevent bias.

All participants are expected to uphold the values that the Pathways Challenge represents:

Violations of the code of conduct may result in disqualification and removal from the competition.

Participants may submit an appeal within the designated appeal window after results are announced. Appeals must include a written justification.

For essay scores, appeals trigger an automatic re-evaluation using a different assessment variation. For presentation scores, appeals are assigned to a different judge. The competition admin makes the final decision after reviewing both evaluations.