TimesView As expected, mathematics continues to be the bugbear of many school students. But it needn’t always be so. There are many methods now available to teachers to spark students’ interest as they explore the magical world of numbers. It’s for them to ensure that kids don’t fear mathematics but learn to like, perhaps even love, it. There’s much more to the subject than clinical equations and there’s great joy when children begin to see patterns in numbers which they had never known existed. Given that the subject is the bedrock of most scientific work, students would do well to overcome their dislike for it. BENGALURU: Mathematics continues to bug students from Karnataka. A shocking 61% of class VIII students from government and private schools can’t do simple mathematical division, the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2018 has found.The percentage is higher for class V students: Only 20.5% of students studying in class 5 know how to do division. The percentage of Class 8 students who can divide has fallen from 42.2% in 2016. “We found fundamental foundation skills lacking in these levels during our survey in Karnataka. There needs to be an increased focus on that,” said Natraja J, ASER Karnataka coordinator.The ASER report highlighted that only 26.6% of students in class 8 can subtract, and 32% can recognize numbers between 10 and 99. At class V level, only 34.1% can subtract and 38% recognize numbers between 10 and 99.“Learning levels in mathematics are low because teachers create fear of mathematics among students. The children need to be taught arithmetic by connecting it to their everyday life,” said Shivakumar M, a National Awardee 2018 and Mathematics teacher from Government High School in Cheemangala village, Sidlaghatta taluk, Chikkaballapura district.Test given to all children in the age group 5 to 16Division, for example, needs to be explained as the simplest form of subtraction; multiplication needs to be taught as the simplest form of addition,” Shivakumar, who is famous for his videos on taking mathematical concepts to rural students in Karnataka, said.A total of 17,999 households and 29,312 children in the age group 3 to 16 were targeted across 30 districts of Karnataka for the survey.The ASER reading test assesses whether a child can read letters, words, a simple paragraph at Standard I level with difficulty, or a story at Standard II level with difficulty. The test was given to all children in the age group 5 to 16 and the child is marked at the highest level that she or he can reach.

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