Ancient Wisdom, Modern Confusion

India’s math crisis will not be solved by rewriting syllabi with Sanskrit gloss, but by rebuilding its classrooms with skilled teachers.

I still remember the moment that made me believe I was “bad at mathematics.” I must have been nine or ten. I had raised my hand in class and asked, “If 2 + 2 = 4 and 2 × 2 = 4, why is 3 + 3 = 6 and 3 × 3 = 9?” A simple question, really. One that any good teacher would have seen as a window into a child’s struggle to make sense of abstract concepts. Mine, however, found it hilarious. He chuckled. Then laughed. Then thirty children joined in. The classroom turned into a comedy show with me as the joke.

The next moment, he was screaming — red-faced, exasperated, his voice cutting through the room. Not once did he stop to ask why I was still grappling with a basic concept. Not once did he pause to consider that the question was not stupidity but confusion seeking clarity. I was not a student anymore; I was the class clown, not by choice but by decree. I learnt nothing about mathematics that day. But I learnt a great deal about humiliation.

It has been decades since that day. I no longer sit in that classroom. I hire people now. And the one thing I look for, more than fancy degrees and impressive jargon, is the ability to reason logically and work with numbers without fear. Ironically, the very skill that was never nurtured in me by the system is what I now need as an educator, which brings me, with a sense of grim amusement, to the University Grants Commission’s new draft undergraduate mathematics curriculum and the spirited clarification offered by M. Jagadesh Kumar.

Strange logic

Let me be blunt. The draft is ludicrous. There is no other way to put it. It reads like something designed not for students, but for a committee room high on civilisational nostalgia and low on pedagogical reality. There is a charming belief running through it — that if you rewrite the curriculum with enough ornamental references to “ancient Indian knowledge systems,” the classroom will somehow fix itself. That logic is right up there with believing that wearing running shoes will make one an Olympic sprinter.

And then there is the elective section of this draft. Mathematics in Music, Mathematics in Drama, Mathematics in Arts, Mathematics in Banking, Mathematics in Business. Truly inspiring. I believe in God being omnipresent. And I know Mathematics is ubiquitous — it underpins everything we study and do. But this is taking omnipresence and turning it into overreach. Just teach students the fundamentals well. If they want to explore mathematics in music or banking or theatre later, they will do it far better if they actually understand mathematics first.

Practical problems

Also, a small practical question for policymakers who are floating these electives with such enthusiasm: where, exactly, are these teachers going to come from? When the three-language policy was proposed, the entire country asked a valid question: where will I get a Telugu teacher in Madhya Pradesh if my child opts for Telugu? Fair question. But apparently, when it comes to ‘Mathematics in Music,’ the gods of omnipresence will simply manifest qualified faculty. Because, of course, it is that easy to find someone who can teach an entire course on Mathematics in Music. We cannot find enough teachers to teach introductory algebra with clarity, but let us expand into the performing arts instead.

Here is a small reminder for the policymakers who sign off on these drafts: a curriculum does not teach. People do. And India does not have a curriculum problem; it has a teacher development problem. A skilled teacher can make even the driest, most outdated syllabus come alive. An unskilled one can reduce the most brilliant curriculum to dead text. But of course, it is far easier to tinker with documents than to invest in real human capacity. After all, syllabi do not ask for training budgets.

What is even more worrying is the creeping narrative that has quietly infiltrated our educational bloodstream — the notion that mathematics must be somehow tied to ‘ancient traditions’ to be meaningful. Why? How, exactly, does knowing how mathematics was conceptualised in ancient India help a 19-year-old today learn to think critically and solve a fundamental problem logically? Nostalgia does not build numeracy. It creates warm feelings and poor learning outcomes.

I can already hear the counter-arguments: “We are not weakening rigour, we are contextualising.” But when ‘contextualising’ becomes a euphemism for diluting rigour and glorifying the past, we are not educating students. We are confusing them. Most students in Indian classrooms are already struggling with the fundamentals of mathematical reasoning.

Adding a thin layer of historical romanticism will not change that. It will, however, give policymakers a convenient illusion of doing something transformative without actually doing the hard work.

My teacher, all those years ago, did not need a better curriculum. He needed to be better trained. He needed to know how to recognise a struggling child not as an object of ridicule, but as a learner in need of support. Multiply that one moment by millions, and you will see the real story of mathematics education in this country.

Before India drafts another comprehensive mathematics curriculum, perhaps it should invest in ensuring that no child walks out of a classroom feeling like a joke for asking a question. Ancient Indian knowledge can be studied in a history class. Mathematics, however, deserves teachers who can actually teach it.

(The author is a learning and development professional. Views personal.)