Indigenus

Interesting. Might you have a link to the study referenced?

Indian system is complex because people are complex. There may be as many reasons as thinkers in this country but observation converges to one -- we are not sincere in our mission. We perform to get things recorded, to increase our bank balance, to shine overnight without much ground performance. The correct situation can be mapped if 610 districts of India are allowed to function under the control of the Deputy Commissioners, the untapped brains of this country. Most of the time they are kept occupied with visiting ministers and red and blue files. Thinkers and intellectuals sitting in AC rooms can't bring change. They can act as guides the way our National Knowledge Commission does.

Hi Prasahant,

The study is not online yet. However, you can see earlier reports of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) here:
http://nces.ed.gov/timss/

This is an interesting finding. The perception in the Western world is that Indians do well in maths. But obviously they don't see the 17 million sample. They only see the small number that come to the Western universities for higher education. I wonder how the results would look if we just looked at the central schools- "Kendriya Vidyalayas".

- Krish

I hated maths right after my class 8. And what reasons do I give for this hatred?

1. When I was first taught that the area of a rectangle is its length multiplied to its breadth I was never told the reason why it is so. When I asked my teacher, he said he didn't know. So for a student it became a mugging business where he had to mug up formula or some fixed tricks to solve problems.

2. Most of my classmates joined tuitions where under-qualified tutors taught them chapters much before they were taken up in class. Half the class never paid attention in school for they knew they would be or have been taught in the tuitions. The other half -- a large number of students who wanted to learn in class -- failed to do so as other classmates were frolicking around.

3. The teachers themselves don't know what is to be taught and lack scientific temper. Teachers seldom look up the latest research. Teaching is not a lucrative profession. Therefore, talented people never get to become teachers. How can we expect talent to be nurtured when the not so talented lobby of people become teachers?

Hi Krish,

Could you please elaborate why you make a special mention of the Kendriya Vidyalayas?

Prashant: The link you sent in does not seem to lead one to the right place.

Well I would take this with a pinch of realistic expectation. We need to be clear what type of maths skills we are talking about - is it the skills to give and receive money change during the daily visit to the grocery shops, or is it advanced skills like Tensors and von Neumann algebra.
Surely India's problem is education, but we also need to be aware that only a very small percentage of people, less than 5% actually have the brain makeup to be interested or grasp abstract concepts like maths. Having a 1 billion population, we surely do have a large 5%, which makes our country naturally the place with 70% share of world software development. The rest 95% are generally not very interested in maths unless it has concrete application in life, or which directly endangers their physical survival (a link which they comprehend).
Now, talented people being only 5% or less, we need to view the the projected great rich-poor divide with a bit of realism and skepticism.
First, actually the rich may not have math skills more than the average person, they know how to make and keep money which requires a different orientation than math skills being alluded here. The reality is a person like Ramakrishnan is less likely to become rich (unless he got family property), simply because he spends more energy and time in pursuing maths and abstract concepts in life, rather than money.
Secondly the gap in maths skills can't be bridged if we are talking about maths skills which Ramakrisnan had, simply because 95% or more people are not interested and do not have the brain makeup to do that.
However, education that helps development is not maths, but awareness and information, what opportunities one has, and how to realize them. Till a few years back in America a truck driver used to earn more than a PhD university professor. That was possible because the society and infrastructure allowed people to utilize their potential, even they did not have high-end maths skills.
Literacy or maths skills is only one part of education. And being rich or poor is not only because of education but structure of the societal systems. The issues are much complex than which can be modeled simply by lack or presence of math skills. So I would suggest that readers take this with a bit of realism, that maths literacy can reduce poverty in India.

The reason I had asked about "Kendriya Vidyalayas" was that in my impression, they are much more normalized and may be representative of the education quality that a middle class may undergo. Some of the state run institutions in my mind may have higher or lower quality dependent on the state. The private schools, of course, will be all over the place. So, it is really hard to generalize based on a pooled analysis.
- Krish