Shillong: While the Education Department has drawn flak in its handling of higher education problems some initiative have been taken at the primary school level to address the problems of learning Mathematics. This initiative was taken note of by the new Union Minister for Human Resources Development, Smriti Irani soon after assuming office.
In a letter addressed to Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma, Irani observed, “During my review of the sectoral programmes, I have found that Meghalaya has taken up innovative programmes for Maths learning in early primary grades. This is a feature that we will commend to other states as well”.
An NCERT survey, on Mathematics teaching-learning in Meghalaya ranked a lowly 18th while a National Achievement Survey (NAS) revealed that children performed below national average on all arithmetical operations, except for data handling and applicative operations like calculation related to money transactions.
This indicates that children are fairly comfortable with analytical and applicative aspects. The glaring gap in arithmetic learning was therefore attributed to poor teaching quality in mathematics, said an official of the Education Department.
Taking serious note of this, the State Education Mission Authority of Meghalaya, SSA explored a collaborative tie up with Jodo Gyan, a Social enterprise focussing on Mathematics and Science besides being an institutional member of National Resource group on Maths as constituted by MHRD.
The SSA-Meghalaya collaborated with Jodo Gyan for initiating a Pilot Project to promote conceptual understanding in primary mathematics amongst primary school students through teachers training and direct intervention in SSA schools across the State.
Jodo Gyan, has been involved in designing curriculum for primary school level mathematics for the last 14 years to support learning with understanding. The Project in Meghalaya focussed on aspects of primary mathematics curriculum, which are purely foundational.
Two critical ideas in the early years of mathematics revolve around Place Value, Number Sense and Fractions. These aspects were given special consideration. Another key focus area is in implementing classroom methods of teaching that would connect research and practice, and help develop mathematical abilities in aspects of reasoning and problem solving, which are critical for dispelling fear of mathematics.
F.R. Kharkongor, Secretary Education and SPD SSA informed that the SSA Meghalaya initially did not get any institutional support for embarking on this innovative project, but SSA managed to get Corporate Social Responsibility support for a pilot commencement of this innovative teaching programme in 2 Districts – West Khasi Hills and Ri Bhoi Districts.
A series of State-level Workshops were conducted, percolating down to the District and School level, involving SSA Maths teachers and the network of Cluster and Block Resource persons, who were sensitized on connecting abstract mathematical concepts with practical day to day experiences.
This also involved wide usage of specifically developed mathematical kits to promote Place Value, Number Sense and Fractions to foster an intuitive understanding on counting and fractions amongst the teachers involved in the teaching of students of primary classes.
The approach focussed intensely on the connection of number with quantity, so as to help connect the lived experiences with the intuitions of the children. For example, two chocolates plus two chocolates makes more sense to a child than an abstract two plus two. Also, the quantity aspect of Number Sense was introduced early to facilitate better learning of fractions.
The Jodo Gyan approach dwelt on counting method followed by structured counting so that the child imbibes the natural and flexible way for mental addition and subtractions. To enable a tangible connect, maths tool kits called the Ganit Mala (counting string) was effectively utilised to teach the SSA teachers in the above workshops.
In 2013 the programme was initially implemented under CSR support on a pilot scale in 57 SSA schools, i.e. 29 schools in Ri-Bhoi District and 28 schools in West Khasi Hills District covering 1353 children of Classes I & II, with a view to help children of the State develop strong mathematical concepts.
The method was successful and students responded enthusiastically. They showed visible signs of improvement in counting and writing numbers through introduction of hands-on activities. The teachers also said these activities enabled them to identify the difficulties faced by the children besides being a useful tool in helping children improve their maths skills.
Seeing the improvement made through this pilot project, the MHRD supported the up-scaling and replication of this project to the other districts of the State for the year 2014, to improve overall quality in maths.
In the current year (2014-15), this programme is being implemented in Classes I & II in 1000 SSA LP schools in four districts of Meghalaya (East Khasi Hills, West Khasi Hills, Jaintia Hills and Ri Bhoi District) and the different implementing agencies at Block and Cluster levels of Garo Hills have also been sensitized to prepare for the introduction of this programme to the Garo Hills in the coming years in a phased manner.