More than 900 mathematicians, researchers, and professors from India and overseas have petitioned the University Grants Commission (UGC) to withdraw the proposed undergraduate mathematics curriculum.
The draft, issued in August by UGC for Bachelor of Arts (BA) and Bachelor of Science (BSc) mathematics in accordance with the National Education Policy 2020, includes subjects such as Vedic mathematics, Bharatiya Bijaganit, the Puranas, and ancient Indian astronomy.
What does the new curriculum include?
The new curriculum requires that students be taught the Narada Purana's geometry citations, muhurtas (auspicious time) in ceremonies computed using the panchanga (traditional Hindu calendar), and ancient Indian time units in comparison to modern systems such as Greenwich Mean Time, Hindustan Times reports.
The draft curriculum also proposes that students learn about the history and evolution of Indian algebra, as well as how to use old formulae like the Paravartya Yojayet Sutra for polynomial division.
The petition, signed by some of India's best mathematicians, including 20 Padma awards and Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize recipients, was sent to UGC Chairperson Vineet Joshi today, Thursday.
It suggests that the draft curriculum be rebuilt and redrafted by a group of mathematical researchers and educators.
Petitioner say...
The petitioners claim that fundamental disciplines such as real analysis, linear algebra, and contemporary algebra have been downgraded or compressed into insufficient time. They warn that important practical courses such as programming, numerical techniques, and statistics are either missing from the curriculum or are covered superficially without hands-on experience.
The petition also criticises the inclusion of outmoded topics like Analytical Geometry and Mechanics, as colonial legacies that have yet to fade away. The researchers claim that this prevents future graduates from pursuing higher education or working in technology and industry.
“The future of mathematics and indeed all scientific endeavour in the country is at stake,” the petitioners say, appealing to the UGC to scrap the existing draft and instate a committee of mathematicians to work on a new one.
“A nation with such a rich heritage of performing well in mathematics should have a curriculum that equips its students to meet the demands of the contemporary world,” states the petition.
These 900 signatories hail from prominent educational institutions such as the Chennai Mathematical Institute, the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Ashoka University, Shiv Nadar University, the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Kolkata, and the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), to name a few.