Scores of students when they join engineering studies after school fail in maths
Picture used for representational purpose. (Photo: PTI)
Chennai: Math concepts not being taught in plus one and plus two syllabus greatly impacts the scores of students when they join engineering studies after school. Researchers from the Maths department in Hindustan University interviewed 100 engineering students, engineering college faculty and parents of engineering students in Chennai to find the causes for students failing in Mathematics. As schools teach only to enable students to score marks based on answer key for public exams, many of them fail to understand basic concepts and later on struggle in college, they said.
According to researchers Praveen Prakash, M.P. Kannan and Esther Jerlin many teachers provide notes as study materials instead of teaching concepts. They have published their findings in the International journal of computer applications.
“Students are trained to answer for specific model questions and not taught the concepts to solve problems out of their book. Lack of thorough knowledge of basic Math concepts at the school level scares students when they graduate to college,” she said. Jerlin recalled that many students whom she interacted with for the research said they would be asked to work out sums given in books over and over again and they would even memorise them.
“When differentiation and integration concepts, which are covered in plus one syllabus, are skipped, students obviously suffer in during first year engineering studies,” Prakash told DC.
Pointing out that there are arrears in Maths compared to other subjects in engineering studies, Prakash said, “Mathematics education should enable engineering students to understand problems with analytical skills and they should come out with solutions as practising engineers. The present scenario is worrisome.” He said the way of teaching Maths and failure to frame application oriented Maths syllabus are also factors that create aversion towards the subject.
The researchers suggest that steps should be taken to conduct orientation for Mathematics faculty of all schools and engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu before they begin their classes.
( Source : dc correspondent )
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