Mathematics education in India – An overview 1
1. Mathematics education in India
– An overview
R. Ramanujam
Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai
[email protected]Introduction
The spirit of modernity and development in nations is reflected in their investment in
children’s education in general. If science education is often termed as societal investment
in the envisioned future, education in the “high roads of mathematics” perhaps constitutes
their hope for the as-yet unvisioned future. Presidents and Prime Ministers remind
their people that science and mathematics education need to equip the nation’s youth
to meet the challenges of the ‘new economy’. Modern nations see value in building a
mathematically literate society and hope for a strong mathematical elite that can shape
the knowledge economy of the 21st century. At the same time, mathematical proficiency
is universally considered hard to achieve.
India, with its strong mathematical traditions, may be expected by the world to produce
excellence in mathematics. But this may be an unreasonable expectation, since India
is grappling with problems of endemic poverty, and even universalising education is
a challenge. Yet, despite adversity, India has managed to produce mathematicians like
Ramanujan and Harish-Chandra. All this adds up to an intriguing picture.
In contrast to the expectations of the global elite, one should consider the hopes and
aspirations of the Indian people themselves. In a population that is largely poor (by any
standards), education is seen as the key instrument to break out of poverty. As many adult
education programmes in India demonstrated, the non-literate or neo-literate poor see the
ability to ‘calculate’, to ‘estimate’ and to ‘predict’ as essential life-skills that education
must (and hopefully does) impart, skills whose natural home in the school curriculum is
mathematics. Once again, what one perceives is a sense of disappointment that school
education does not impart such skills. In a public hearing in 2006 when a curriculum
2 R. Ramanujam
group met members of the general public, a grocer bitterly complained that he could
never find educated young recruits who could calculate when stocks would need to be
replenished and by how much.
What then characterizes mathematics education in India? We suggest that it is this mix, of
severe systemic challenges, but yet a growing young population approaching them with
a sense of hope, in a land of many innovations and initiatives, a system operating rather
chaotically. In this article, we attempt to give a bird’s eye-view of the vast landscape of
mathematics education in India.
Systemic Challenges
The landscape of mathematics education in India calls for a very broad vision to
encompass and comprehend. It is not only a matter of scale and magnitude in numbers
of children and teachers that constitute the system, but also messy but democratic modes
of functioning in which there are pulls from many social and political aspirants of society.
We want every child to learn mathematics and enjoy it; the reality of achieving this
with millions of children and teachers by democratic means provides a major systemic
challenge. Before we look at how this affects mathematics education specifically, we
need an understanding of the vast system it operates in.
The law called Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (abbreviated as
Right to Education or RTE Act) came into force in India as recently as April 1, 2010. It
guarantees 8 years of elementary education to every child in the age group 6-14 in an age
appropriate classroom in the vicinity of his/her neighbourhood. This implies the right of
every Indian child to quality mathematics education as well.
The subcontinent
Education in India is provided and controlled by three levels: the central government in
Delhi, the state governments and local sources (largely private). It is regulated by both
the centre and the states; this has crucial implications for designing and implementing
curricula and pedagogic practices, policies for hiring and training teachers, monitoring
schools, for setting standards and ensuring them, procedures for certification and ensuring
overall systemic health. The states are responsible for these functions, the centre being
largely regulatory but helping with funding. This at once enables many decentralized
efforts as well as challenges attempts at national or centralized education reform.
The linguistic and cultural diversity of the Indian subcontinent accommodates a range of
voices and approaches, and offers multiple ways of approaching mathematical experience.
Many states in India are themselves geographically as large as some European nations
and often larger in population. Education within these states is administered in further
Mathematics education in India – An overview 3
divisions of educational districts, but there is little decentralization within the state.
Curricular and pedagogic processes are not locally shaped, and the state educational
authority is as remote as the central government from the viewpoint of a school. While
this enables curricular homogeneity, it tends to stifle local pedagogic ingenuity.
Structure
India’s education system is structured by developmental stages from pre-primary to
post-graduate level as shown in Figure 1. Elementary education (primary and upper
primary) is managed separately from secondary (including higher secondary) education.
Undergraduate education is typically for three years, and 4-5 years for professional
degrees. Universities are regulated centrally but managed within the state, with a system
of affiliated colleges providing undergraduate education.
The Ministry of Human Resource Development governs the overall Indian education
system, with each State government having its own Education Ministry, and a Central
Advisory Board on Education providing the platform for exchanges between the centre
and states (as well as between states). In all 43 Boards of School Education operate in the
country and they are the ones that formulate syllabi, train teachers and offer certification.
For school education, the National Council of Educational Research and Training
Post-Graduate Education (for 2 years)
Under-Graduate Education (for 3-5 years)
Higher Secondary Education (Age 16-18)
Secondary Education (Age 14-16)
Upper Primary Education (Age 11-14)
Elementary Education
Primary Education (Age 6-11)
Pre-Primary Education (Age up to 6)
Figure 1: Levels of Education in the Indian System
4 R. Ramanujam
(NCERT) is the apex body for curriculum related matters, but except for the Central Board
of Secondary Education for which it designs curricula, its role is largely advisory vis a
vis the other Boards of education. At the University level, every University formulates its
own curricula but the University Grants Commission regulates their functioning.
There is a vibrant Open University system as well as the National Institute of Open
Schooling that seek to provide access to education cutting across potential barriers
formed by these structures.
Large numbers
Even a cursory look at the numbers shows how daunting implementation can be, and we
take up only data from primary education for discussion.1
Total Number in rural areas
Number of children 134
108
(ages 6-11) (boys - 69, girls - 65)
Number of schools 1.28 0.8
Number of teachers* 5.8 4.5
*May include teachers also teaching in the upper primary grades
Table 1: Numbers related to primary education in India (in millions as of 2009)
The numbers already reveal a picture of a large education system, largely rural and
millions of missing girls. That the government is the main provider of education for the
population becomes clear when we note that, of the 1.28 million schools, 1.03 million are
government-run. Of these, 0.8 million have classes only for the primary stage and 0.23
million have classes up to upper primary sections. The average number of teachers in a
primary-only school is 2.98 and 6.96 for a school that has classes 1 to 8. The average
pupil to teacher ratio is 36 for primary-only schools and 33 for schools with primary and
upper primary levels.
The Quality Dimension
Why should it matter for teaching arithmetic and basic algebra whether the number of
schools is one thousand or one million? After some threshold value of n (possibly 3 or 4),
perhaps teaching mathematics to 10m children is the same as 10n children for any m > n.
To some extent, this is the viewpoint embedded in much of educational administration in
India, and mathematics educators are deeply aware of the injury such attitudes can bring
to children’s education.
According to some Indian scholars, the central challenge of Indian education is dealing with
1
All data in this section are from the Final Report 2008-09 of Sarva Shiksha Abhyan, the Education for
All project of the Government of India. They are intended to be indicative of the current scenario.
Mathematics education in India – An overview 5
the metaphorical triangle of quantity, quality and equality. The state sector in education
is beset by major shortage and uneven spread of resources, as witnessed by the large
percentage of single classroom schools, as high as 38 percent in a rather large populous
state like Andhra Pradesh. Such extreme shortage of resources presents a tremendous
quality constraint. Much worse, and especially relevant to mathematics education, is lack
of qualified and committed teachers. No system can rise above the quality of its teachers,
and content knowledge of mathematics is crucial for mathematics education. Set against
this is the data that nearly 43 percent of teachers in India in elementary education do not
possess a college degree of any kind, let alone in mathematics.
Indian society is division-riven and this provides a great challenge for quality and
equality in education. Mathematics being a compulsory subject of study, access to
quality mathematics education is every child’s right. On the other hand, there is
considerable research (though not specific to mathematics classrooms) to suggest that
teacher preconceptions, bias and behaviour, causes discrimination against children from
the groups with low socio-economic status, the so-called “Scheduled Castes” (SC) and
“Scheduled Tribes” (ST).
We have spoken of the missing millions among girls. The girls who do come to school are
subject to social discrimination as well. In rural areas preconceptions such as mathematics
being “unnecessary” for girls can be observed even among teachers. Despite the better
performance of girls in Board examinations than boys in recent years, the stereotype that
boys are better at mathematics than girls is seen to persist.
The social context of Indian education is reflected in the sharp disparities between
different social and economic groups, which are seen in school enrolment and completion
rates. Thus, girls belonging to SC and ST communities among the rural and urban poor
and the disadvantaged sections of religious and other ethnic minorities are educationally
most vulnerable, and data confirm this.
Set against such a bleak picture is also hope, arising from several wellsprings of activity:
1. Against all odds and amidst extreme diversity, we find children who take to
mathematics and teachers committed to mathematics education. Statistically
small, they still make up a large number given the size of the Indian population.
2. While social barriers are a great challenge, the confidence and energy released by
overcoming them is very positive. Mathematics, being the discipline of thought
without great need for texts, laboratories and other paraphernalia, and being the
discipline that greatly inspires confidence and self-esteem, becomes then an in-
strument to break out of adversity for children from these disadvantaged sections,
especially girls.
3. Southern India has seen how the growth of computing and Information Technol-
6 R. Ramanujam
ogy industry offers a sense of hope to people, and perhaps due to the popular
perceptions of computing, to a surge in interest in mathematics education. Among
this is a noticeable increase in the participation, in mathematics learning, of girls
and children from underprivileged sections.
4. The educational reform process initiated in the last decade has seen a churning
across the country within school mathematics, in terms of attitudes and approach-
es to it. While it is too early to tell whether these efforts will lead to radical shifts,
the trend is positive.
5. Lastly, the use of technology, only recently coming in as a factor, may help India
solve some of the systemic problems discussed above.
Reforms
While mathematics was seen to be an essential part of any curriculum from early on,
perspectives differed. The Zakir Husain committee in 1937 saw it in relation to work. The
National Policy on Education in 1986 saw it as a “vehicle to train a child to think, reason,
analyze and to articulate logically.” However, the shape of mathematics education has
remained largely the same over the last 50 years. In response to global curricular processes
in India too there has been considerable curricular acceleration in school Mathematics.
For instance, calculus which was only taught in college three decades ago is taught now
at the higher secondary level. On the other hand projective geometry has almost entirely
disappeared from the school. At the undergraduate level, the core curriculum remains
much the same, though the influence of computer science and other modern disciplines
can be seen in the course mix on offer.
In all this, one strain that has been persistent is the experience of anxiety and failure
associated with Mathematics. Excessive use of procedure and the pressure of Board
examinations and entrance examinations for access to prestigious institutions have
created a culture of highly competitive preparation among the urban elite, and this has
taken a toll on meaningful mathematics. On the other hand, in almost all Boards if there
are specific disciplines that record failures, mathematics is principal among them. It is
often referred to as the ‘killer’ subject and studies showed that a large number of children
were failing or dropping out before completing elementary school because they could not
cope with the demands of the curriculum.
Over the end of the last century, a perception that mathematics education was increasingly
becoming burdensome and ineffective had gathered momentum. The Report ‘Learning
Without Burden’ (Ministry of Human Resource and development, 1993) had pointed out
that children were in fact not ‘dropping out’ but were being ‘pushed out’, owing to the
‘burden of non-comprehension’, as a result of an irrelevant curriculum, distanced from the
Mathematics education in India – An overview 7
lives of the majority, and often rendered ‘boring and uninteresting’ by outdated teaching
strategies. This shift from conventional ‘deficit theories’, which attribute children’s
inability to learn to some ‘deficit’ in their mental abilities or their home background, led
to a critical review of the curriculum and the traditional teaching learning process based
on rote memorisation of facts.
The National Curriculum Framework (henceforth “NCF 2005”) responded to this and
guided the development of new curricula and textbooks based on how children actively
construct knowledge, rooted in social and cultural practices (National Council for
Educational Research and Training [NCERT], 2005). The NCF 2005 position paper on
the teaching of mathematics (NCERT, 2006a) begins by stating that the primary goal of
mathematics education is the “mathematization of the child’s thought processes” and
the development of the “inner resources of the growing child.” It goes on to argue for a
“shift from content to process”, recommending a multiplicity of approaches, to liberate
school mathematics from the “tyranny of the one right answer obtained by applying the
one algorithm that has been taught”. It emphasized the need for processes such as “formal
problem solving, use of heuristics, estimation and approximation, optimization, use of
patterns, visualization, representation, reasoning and proof, making connections, and
mathematical communication”.
Subsequent to this, many Boards of education in the states undertook a curricular
review exercise and the last few years have witnessed a churning. While the lofty goals
articulated above may be hard to achieve, there have been some significant shifts visible
in textbooks and pedagogic processes, especially in elementary education. However,
secondary education, weighed down by the shadow of Board examinations, remains hard
to reform.
The end-of-school Board examinations remain landmark events in the lives of children,
and as passports to economic mobility, they critically inform attitudes to education. These
exams cast long shadows and inordinately influence classroom assessment. In fact, the
traditional pattern of examinations in mathematics have been a matter of serious concern
and have not only intimidated children but have often dissuaded more creative teachers
too, since their classroom efforts to encourage sense making tend to get obliterated by the
focus on procedural questions devoid of meaning and contextual relevance.
In this context, the pressures of a democratic society on Board examination results have to
be acknowledged as well. When single subject failures tended to be high in mathematics,
the pressure to set exams that fail fewer pupils became strong. This has led to a situation
where pass rates have increased among those who appear for Board exams, but many
who give up, drop out much earlier. This also means that high achievement in many of
these exams may not attest to high competence or mastery of the subject either.
One solution to this has been attempted in many parts of the world, that of streaming
8 R. Ramanujam
students into Basic Mathematics and Advanced Mathematics, with the former
constituting mathematical literacy that the state considers essential for its citizens, and
the latter dictated by disciplinary objectives. But this is problematic in India, since they
can become yet another form of social discrimination, with the latter course simply not
being offered in many schools which children from poorer sections attend. Indeed, this
was the experience in many Indian states in which such streaming existed till the 1960’s.
In a society that is already deeply riven by many social schisms, the possibility that the
rights of disadvantaged children to quality education in mathematics might be subverted
presents a major problem.
The reforms we have spoken of have come about because outside the formal system
the country has had a range of educational initiatives, largely experimental and small
scale but nevertheless carried out by passionately committed educationists. The valuable
lessons got from such work contributed significantly to the national reform process.
Such work is still visible in India, across geographic regions, from primary schools to
university education.
Higher stages
We have spoken at length about elementary education. The situation is similar in secondary
and tertiary education, but the fact that India has the third largest higher education system
in the world (after China and the USA) suggests that there is a great deal of mathematics
around as well.
According to India 2009 Reference Annual (Ministry of Information and Broadcasting,
2009), India has 20 universities run by the Central Government and 215 run by States. In
addition there are 100 autonomous institutions deemed-to-be universities that do not get
their funding directly from Governments. Nearly 16000 colleges are affiliated to these
universities, among them 1800 exclusively for women.
India is also home to some institutions where world class research in mathematics is
carried out. A strong group of Indian mathematicians have been contributing to the
development of many areas of mathematics. The legendary genius Srinivasa Ramanujan
has inspired generations of young Indians towards taking up mathematics as a calling.
India boasts of institutions of technology and medicine that have been globally acclaimed
for their standard of undergraduate education. These, and the boom in Information
Technology industry (and its generation of jobs) in the last two decades, have led to
a greater emphasis on mathematical training, and the nation seeks to expand a pool of
scientifically equipped manpower.
This creates a situation in India where higher education in mathematics forms a very sharp
pyramid. A few elite institutions offer excellent opportunities for mathematics research,
Mathematics education in India – An overview 9
and a small number for mathematics education as a part of technology or engineering
education, or in some instances, management studies. However, among the large
number of universities and a vast number of affiliated colleges, which provide the bulk
of tertiary mathematics education, there is an overall rigidity in curriculum, pedagogy
and modes of assessment that make mathematics education often ineffective, and this
affects the prospects of building a strong pool of mathematics teachers for the future.
Small innovative initiatives towards constructing a meaningful interactive pedagogy at
the undergraduate level give hope for solving this problem on a larger scale in the future.
The major challenge
If one were asked to isolate and point to one single challenge as the most important
among the plethora of problems that we have mentioned, it would have to be that of
creating a pool of good mathematics teachers in the required numbers. At the elementary
stage, the numbers exist, but not with the required understanding of mathematics or
attitudes towards mathematics or comprehension of how children learn (or fail to learn)
mathematics. The social inequalities in India and the resource-poor rural schools call for
greater competence on the part of teachers than richer, more democratic societies. This
calls for new modes of teacher professional development that are yet to be formulated.
At higher stages, the numbers are daunting. The existing pool of teachers is woefully
inadequate for meeting the requirements, especially with universalisation of school
education becoming a conceivable reality within a generation. With the numbers, the
problem of rigour and depth in mathematical knowledge and practice becomes more
acute. Devising systemic measures to achieve quality in teacher preparation is perhaps
the most urgent need in the Indian mathematics scenario today.
Research
An important agenda for mathematics education in India is research in mathematics
education. University departments, while undertaking research in education, by their
typical structure, tend to attract largely people who are neither mathematically trained nor
thus inclined. Further, the idea of research providing solutions to curricular conundrums
or pedagogic trauma remains outside the framework of decision making in education.
This is not to belittle the tremendous contributions made by governmental as well as non-
governmental initiatives towards reform that have been characterised by innovation and
commitment. However, these do not rest on a scaffolding of research and rigorous critique
as yet. The system needs to build a way of actively pursuing research on several fronts
towards well formulated questions and use the answers to influence policy. It should be
noted here that India provides a large enough arena, with tremendous diversity, to even
10 R. Ramanujam
allow a self-contained universe for analysis and research, and international influences can
only add to this richness.
The agenda for such research includes not only internalist critique from the discipline of
mathematics and its pedagogy and practices. Indian society and its cultural and work-
based practices also offer avenues for mathematical explorations that a pedagogue could
incorporate into a toolkit. However, a body of research needs to be built to make realistic
use of such possibilities.
Last words
This heady mix can be summarized, perhaps a bit crudely, as follows:
1. The challenge of providing quality mathematics education for all at school level
is immense, and the country has some way to traverse to achieve this.
2. The need for a large body of teachers with expertise in mathematics and training
in pedagogy is acute.
3. The Government is the central player in Indian education, but it is not monolithic
either.
4. On the other hand, India’s diversity has given rise to a range of initiatives, some
small, some large, including some from the Government.
We have spoken of problems endemic to the Indian mathematics education system, but
many of them are not unlike problems encountered in mathematics education in other
societies and nations. The immense size and diversity of the Indian subcontinent, low
levels of resources and an almost ungovernable polity complicate, but the sense of hope
that prevails suggests that India may yet solve these problems, that force us to take a hard
look at mathematics not only in terms of curricula (in diversity), pedagogy (in widely
varied milieu) but in social context as well.
One thing is for sure: when India manages to provide quality mathematics education for
all, mathematics education as a discipline would have new insights and new formulations
to work with.
References
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Ministry of Human Resource and Development (1993). Learning without burden:
Report of the National Advisory committee appointed by the Ministry of Human
Mathematics education in India – An overview 11
Resource Development. New Delhi: MHRD.
National Council of Educational Research and Training (2005). National curriculum
framework. New Delhi: NCERT.
National Council of Educational Research and Training (2006a). National focus group
on teaching of mathematics report. New Delhi: NCERT.
National Council of Educational Research and Training (2006b). National focus group
on aims of education. New Delhi: NCERT.
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www.nbhm.dae.gov.in/about.html
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