It looks like schools are going back to ancient methods of learning as an
order was issued by Pradeep Aggarwal (The Director-General of School Education,
DGSE) stating that Punjab government school should conduct a 50-mark Vedic
Mathematics test on January 19 for students from classes 6 to 10.
After the test, results will be sent to DGSE's office by 4
pm. At the same time, District Education
Officers (DEOs) would see to it that which school didn't conduct the test and
prepare a list of the same which would also be sent to DGSE's office.
The idea behind conducting this test is to find out how well
students understand Vedic maths as it isn't included in their course yet.
There is a lot of preparation going for it as The Ministry
of Human Resource and Development (HRD) gave Rs 3.5 lakh grant to Punjab for
this entire process. Also, three-day training course on Vedic Maths was
attended by 5000 teachers before the test.
This training course was conducted by 110 resource persons
who were trained in October. They were trained by a five-member team from the
Indian Institute of Vedic Mathematics and Abacus (IIVA) at the Regional
Institute of Cooperative Management in Chandigarh.
People have different views regarding this, as per
Educationist Dinanath Batra (who is a follower of vedic Maths) it is
related to India's ancient mental mathematics model helping students in solving lengthy sums easily. However, others say that this subject is not associated
with the Vedas.
Apart from these views, the website of Sarva Shiksha
Abhiyaan (SSA), Punjab School Education contains a module of Vedic Maths, which
was prepared in collaboration with the Delhi-based IIVA proving that it is
related to Vedas. The module describes it as an ancient subject of mathematics.
This was built over centuries and was rediscovered between 1911 and 1918 from
the Vedas by Jagadguru Swami Shri Bharti Krishna Tirathji Maharaj.
The reason behind this is students of Tamil Nadu and
Karnataka who are faster in calculations due to Vedic Maths, said Amarbir Singh
(Assistant State Project Director for Maths and Science in the Punjab school
education department).
According to Rakesh Kumar Nagaich who is Punjabi
University's senior mathematics professor, Vedic maths uses tricks which makes
calculations easier. It should be included in the regular course of students so
that they can speed up calculations and a three-day test will not serve the
purpose.
Tags: Vedic Maths
Punjab Schools
Deq
Dgse
