Glaring disconnect.
THE National Education Policy (NEP) lays stress on interactive teaching and learning instead of rote memorisation so that the knowledge acquired in the classroom can be applied to real-life situations. The focus is supposed to be on preparing the student to face the world with confidence. How much progress has been made on this front in recent years? A study co-authored by Nobel laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo shows that being good at mathematics on the go, as witnessed in Indian kids working in the marketplace, does not often translate into classroom arithmetic, and vice versa. Simply put, there is a big gap between intuitive and formal styles of learning that needs to be bridged by fine-tuning the curriculum.
Mastering mathematics is a challenge for schoolchildren from low-income backgrounds worldwide, and India is no exception. Poverty and deprivation force millions of families across the country to make their kids — mostly those who have never been to school — do odd jobs, such as working as street vendors. According to the study, such children can do complex calculations in seconds, and that too unaided, but find it hard to deal with simpler abstract maths taught in schools. Their schoolgoing peers excel at academic maths but fail at basic real-world calculations.
The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2024 shows that arithmetic levels of children in the age group of 6-14 years have improved in government as well as private schools. This is a good sign, but it is no less important to encourage kids to go beyond textbooks and hone their skills in practical calculations. Such an approach can go a long way in ensuring successful implementation of the NEP. It can also help in improving the students’ employability and competency by making them street-smart rather than mere bookworms or exam warriors. A skilled workforce is a prerequisite for boosting India’s socioeconomic growth.