Panel to make maths a ‘friendly’ subject

NEW DELHI: The Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry on Wednesday constituted a committee under the chairmanship of Gujarat education minister Bhupendra Singh Chudasama to suggest measures to make mathematics “a friendly subject” for the school students in the country.

The Human Resource Development (HRD) minister Prakash Javadekar announced this on Wednesday.

Javadekar said that this decision was taken on the basis of National Assessment Survey to eliminate the fear of maths among the students.

Another committee headed by Telangana deputy CM Kadiam Srihari, who also holds education portfolio in the State cabinet, will suggest ways to the government to improve the in-service training of the school teachers.

Both the committees will submit their reports within three months. Education ministers of six states and education secretaries of the states also participated in the annual meeting of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT).

The results of a nation-wide competency test of the students of Classes 3, 5 and 8, held by the NCERT across the country on November 13 last year, had revealed that learning levels of the students in mathematics were progressively low.

Delhi education minister Manish Sisodia said, “There is a need to rethink how we teach language and maths in our schools, as they are the building blocks for students to access the rest of subjects in school. Our approach has been of remediation and playing catch-up, while the need of the hour is to reconceptualise the content and the way we have been educating our children.”