NEP and the Mathematics Curriculum.
Panelists:
- R Ramanujam, a retired Professor from the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai and a visiting faculty member at the School of Arts and Sciences, Azim Premji University.
- Madhavan Mukund, Director Chennai Mathematical Institute, Chennai and currently NCERT chair of school maths curriculum for classes 6-12
- S. U. Kamat, Retired math college professor who taught Math at various colleges in Goa for five decades
- Siddharaj Mopkar, an NIT Calicut Engg. Graduate and Teach for India Fellow has been training school children for foundational courses in mathematics and science out of a passion for teaching.
- Ulpa Waingankar, Assistant Professor Mathematics, Padre Conceicao College of Engineering, Verna Goa
Moderator: Venkatesh Kamat, Retired Professor of Computer Science at Goa University and currently a visiting professor at IIT Goa
Summary:
NEP (2020) proposes a curriculum and pedagogy overhaul and a paradigm shift from content-based to experience-based learning. It suggests stark structural changes. At the school level – the standard 10+2 school system is meant to be replaced by a 5+3+3+4 structure under the new NEP 2020 policy. In this new composition, three years of Anganwadi, or play school, will be added to twelve years of traditional schooling because children ages 3-6 are vital for brain development. At the college level – it introduces a credit-based system and an interdisciplinary curriculum to allow students to apply their knowledge considering mathematics’s numerous and varied applications. These structural changes also pose conceptual challenges along with other existing issues, such as moving away from rote learning, qualitative growth rather than quantitative growth, conceptual clarity, holistic assessment, etc. The panel will give an overview of these changes and concerns at the Undergraduate level and discuss the possibilities of practical ways to cope with the changes.