53% of youth struggle with basic maths: study continues....

Hopes on new syllabus

While the Tamil Nadu government is on the brink of implementing a revamped curriculum for State board schools, a teacher from a government school in Chennai said that the new syllabus, which promises to shift the focus from evaluation to learning, would bring about a change.

The report said that cellphone penetration was found to be at a high. Only 3.5% of the sample from Madurai stated that they had never used a mobile phone while nearly 27.1% of them said that they had never used a computer.

Literacy levels of family

The survey also indicated that only 11% of the mothers and 15% of the fathers of the youth surveyed had passed Class X.

“This too, we believe, would have a bearing on the aspirations of the youth that we met as part of the study,” said B. Oliver, State head of Pratham Foundation, an organisation committed to improving the quality of education in the country.

Speaking about the survey, he said that financial calculations, maps and general knowledge, daily tasks such as adding weights and telling time as well as digital literacy were included in the survey this year in a departure from the previous editions of the study.

“It has been nearly seven years since the implementation of the Right to Education Act, and with Central government initiatives such as ‘Digital India’ picking up pace, we based our study on the general levels of awareness and exposure of youth in rural districts as well as their basic abilities,” he explained.

reference: http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/53-of-youth-struggle-with-basic-maths-study/article22452570.ece