Indian Scene

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The Minister for Education in the state of Maharashtra created ripples, if not an uproar when he put forth a suggestion a fortnight ago that Mathematics should be made an optional subject from Std VIII onwards. His contention is that schools should become a bit more student friendly; that the number of dropouts after standard VII has increased because of the fear of Mathematics; that education will be better served if Mathematics is dropped from the syllabus as a compulsory subject. Ha! Ha!! Ha!!! <>

The minister is wrong. Consider the table given below. It is about a survey on education done in several states, and I have chosen to excerpt data relating to only two states – Bihar and Maharashtra – for purposes of contrast and convenience. It could be useful because of the number of Bihari migrants flocking to Mumbai. And it could mean that more jobs are likely to go to these migrants and not to local Maharashtrians. And do note one more point: This data was collated by an NGO organisation in 1997, almost six years before the state government of Maharashtra decided to adopt a policy of automatic mass promotions till Std IV. <>

Since then, education standards in Maharashtra have plummeted further. This has been borne out by studies done by another NGO organisation, Asar, under the umbrella of Pratham (also an NGO) that were completed just a few months ago. <>

And they were confirmed by E-convergence Technologies Limited – a company with which I am actively involved) – in 2002 when we surveyed 34 private (not municipal) English-medium schools in North-East Mumbai (not Vidharba or Yavatmal). Almost 16,500 students from Std VI and VIII appeared for the quiz involving 10 simple questions in English and 10 simple questions in Mathematics (some of them were as simple as “put the numbers in the right order”). Over 60% failed in Mathematics and over 70% failed in English. <>

The table alongside shows that more students in Maharashtra failed in both English and Mathematics than in Bihar. There were more students securing ‘zeroes’ in Maharashtra than in Bihar. And the reason is simply because there are more ‘good’ teachers in Bihar than in Maharashtra. One reason for that is because ‘good’ teachers in Bihar remained in teaching. They did not get alternative employment opportunities that Maharashtra had. <>

In Maharashtra, ‘good’ teachers went to other professions, and the state government failed in providing teachers higher incentives to retain and maintain the quality of teaching. Not surprisingly, peons in municipal schools in Mumbai get better paid than teachers.

And by making Mathematics optional, the government will make Maharashtrians less competitive in the job market than people from Bihar.

<> That would be very very sad indeed!

Maharashtra versus Bihar

Test Score	Bihar (Language)	Bihar (Mathematics)	Maharashtra (Language)	Maharashtra (Mathematics)
0	0.3	2.3	6.0	8.4
1-10	6.0	8.1	24.8	24.0
11-20	8.0	14.3	13.4	16.9
21-30	12.0	12.3	11.1	15.8
31-40	11.9	11.2	8.8	10.3
41-50	8.1	12.5	8.6	10.0
51-60	7.6	9.9	7.1	5.6
61-70	13.0	9.7	7.7	4.4
71-80	13.8	9.3	7.4	2.6
81-90	10.7	4.7	4.3	1.6
91-100	8.6	5.7	0.8	0.4
Total	100	100	100	100
N	616	616	1554	1554
Mean*	53.8	44.5	32.6	26.5
Source:Aikara (1997), reproduced by Oxford Publications in its survey on Education in India. Calculated from the original scores.

The minister must be joking . . . . .

Maharashtra versus Bihar