Maths adding up woes of students: Govt failed to simplify the subject to check dropout rate
Srinagar: The government decision to simplify the mathematics subject in order to control the dropout rate of school children has taken a back seat as the department of education is yet to issue formal orders on modification of the syllabus despite holding several meetings.
An official said the issue has been shelved at civil secretariat level as the department didn’t carry forward the initiative for students.
Earlier, the department had constituted an academic committee after it got “worried” about the girls’ dropout rate in government schools and decided to modify the mathematics subject up to class 10th.
“The decision was taken after it was observed by the department that the dropout in schools was mainly due to mathematics subject,” insiders said.
“The move was seen to put a control at dropouts in the schools particularly the female students who leave their studies at middle or high school level. But there is no headway at the departmental level in this matter,” the official said.
He said Mathematics as subject is considered to be a tough subject due to which the students prefer to leave studies because they are not able to qualify the exams in this subject.
“The issue came into discussion in various meeting convened by school education department with JK Board of school education (BOSE) and it was opined to modify the syllabus of mathematics subject,” he said.
As per the decision, the department had decided to have two books of mathematics- Standard and General mathematics for students up to class 10th. Under this “General mathematics” will be a simplified version of mathematics and students who want to opt for Arts or home science at 10+2 level will be given an option to take general mathematics up to class 10.
“The students aspiring for engineering or medicine will have to opt for standard mathematics,” an official said.
The initiative was taken keeping in view the dropout rate of students at secondary and senior secondary level.
The decision was taken in wake of the 13th annual status of education report (ASER) released on January 15 wherein it was stated that 12.5 percent of girls between the age group of 15 to 16 years in J&K state were not enrolled in any of the government or private schools.
“The school education department is already facing a challenge of enrolling the out of school children in the mainstream schools,” the official added.
Already reported, against the target of 27,355 out-of-school children (OSC) in 2017, only 600 have joined mainstream schools till date, throwing a major challenge to the government to increase enrolment of such students.
Secretary School Education Department, Sarita Chauhan said the department has not shelved the issue but it takes time to finalise such policy decisions.
“We are looking into all the aspects of the issue,” she said.
KV Correspondent
