Mathematics education: a quintessential cog for higher education

Author: 
Stelen Diffani N and William Dharma Raja B

The National Policy on Education (1986) has portrayed mathematics as the vehicle to train a child to think, to reason out, to analyze and to articulate logically. Apart from being a specific subject, it should be treated as a concomitant to other subject involving analysis and reasoning. The country requires mathematics education that is affordable to every child, and at the same time enjoyable. Development of mathematical literacy in children is increasingly viewed as a potential source of nation’s capital and as a means to sustain healthy technological society. Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) defines mathematical literacy as an individual’s capacity to identify and understand the role played by mathematics in the world, to make well-founded judgments and to use and engage mathematics to meet the needs of the individual’s life as a constructive, concerned and reflective citizen. The curriculum of mathematics in industrialized nations has been renovated to ensure that children have access to the learning opportunities necessary to attain a high level of mathematical literacy (Hopkins, 2007). The achievement of such high mathematical literacy is possible when there is a prominent change in the teaching of mathematics. The shift to broaden the scope of mathematics teaching is exemplified in the principles and standards for school mathematics proposed by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (2000) in the United States. Research has shown that approximately 5 to 8 percent of school-aged children experience difficulty meeting the standards proposed by the NCTM. This paper tries to describe new strategies in rendering the mathematics education to the students. It also points out the areas requiring the changes and introduces the novelty in the teaching of mathematics which leads for students’ smooth run with the higher education.

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DOI: 
http://dx.doi.org/10.24327/ijcar.2018.9486.1569
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Volume7