Devotion of teacher X: Individual and national futures depend on math skills, which depend on good teacher training

If poor math skills are raising alarm in America about its global competitiveness, how much more worried should India be? In certain circles there is still complacency about a strong legacy of Aryabhatta and Ramanujan. But the facts do not bear it out at all. Aser surveys indicate that the number of Class III children who can do subtraction hasn’t budged significantly in a decade. It hovers around an abysmal 20% across government and private schools. Because India has not been participating in the Pisa competition, global comparisons are difficult. But the US has. Its students score lower than those in 36 other education systems, China’s score the highest.

The way forward is to learn from how other countries have overcome this challenge. The key to Vietnam’s high Pisa scores for example is lots of attention to teacher training. On this, India really needs to turn a new chapter. Recently, Bihar suspended teachers’ training programmes to engage them in the caste survey. Such terrible prioritisation is widespread. America is worried because a poor math pipeline means poor prospects for both individual and national prosperity. The equation is no different for India. For example, the difference between fearing job loss because of AI tools and excitement about riding this tiger, is to a large extent scripted by one’s skill levels, and comfort with upskilling. It’s essentially about having a solid grounding. This is also why a US congressional hearing in 2005 rued that 46% of math teachers had not majored or minored in math in college. Again, comparable numbers are not available in India, but the big picture is similar. Too many students are intimidated by math because too many teachers are!

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