By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, Dec 20: A three-day National Conference on Mathematics Education was inaugurated by Education Minister Rakkam A Sangma on Wednesday.
The conference was organised by the North East Regional Institute of Education (NERIE)-NCERT, Umiam, to commemorate the National Mathematics Day marking the birth anniversary of Srinivasa Ramanujan Aiyangar.
Delivering the inaugural address, chief guest, Rakkam A Sangma, highlighted the crises of good mathematicians, teacher of Mathematics, and Mathematics phobia.
He asserted that Mathematics, per se, has not failed the students but the failure of teachers to adopt appropriate approaches and strategies of teaching.
Emphasizing on the centrality of Mathematics as the pillars of governance and technology to turn India into a super power of knowledge through the successful implementation of National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, Sangma asked the participants and the NCERT to rethink and redesign the curriculum, syllabus and textbooks keeping in mind the capacity and the limitations of the students in Mathematics so as to make it student friendly, fun and enjoyable to learn.
Delivering the key note address, Prof Manjul Bhargava, Princeton University, New Jersey, USA, highlighted the key contributions of Indian numerals, especially the discovery of zero as a concept, as a symbol and as a number through an interdisciplinary approach connecting Mathematics to art, aesthetics, music, poetry, linguistics, literature and architecture.
Narrating his own journey of learning Mathematics inspired by his encounters with his grandfather, a Sanskrit Scholar, Prof Bhargava underlined the fact that Mathematics is connected to every other subject and every aspect of our life as an elegant, fun and enjoyable subject. The fear of Mathematics, he stated, stems from the way it is taught and he suggested that discovery-based and inquiry-based approach with lesser content and an emphasis on the discovery and mastering of the key idea, concept and principle would go a long way in making students realized the elegance of the Mathematics.