Where Indian children stumble in Mathematics
New Delhi: A national survey has found Class VIII pupils in Bengal performing below the national average in mathematics, and children across the country floundering in geometry, particularly in calculating the volumes of cubes and cylinders.
The children, however, tended to do better with the algebra questions asked in the National Achievement Survey, conducted by the National Council of Educational Research and Training.
Some 22 lakh children from Classes III, V and VIII, selected at random from government schools across the states and Union territories, participated in the survey, carried out last November.
The Class VIII mathematics paper posed 60 geometry and algebra questions, sorted in 20 categories. Among the tasks the pupils found the most difficult were calculating the surface areas and volumes of cuboids and cylinders, and answering questions relating to the properties of parallelograms.
Addition and subtraction of algebraic expressions appeared the easiest.
Bengal students’ average score across the 20 categories trailed the national average while their Karnataka counterparts were among the best performers.
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