A recent study exposes a significant gap in math skills between Indian youths working in marketplaces and those engaged in formal education, emphasizing the need for more integrated teaching methods.
In a striking new study published in Nature, researchers have uncovered a substantial gap in mathematical abilities among youths in India, drawing attention to the different skill sets utilized in work environments versus academic settings.
The research, conducted by a team of esteemed economists and scholars, including Nobel laureates Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, explores how children who work in retail markets display impressive mental math capabilities yet falter in classroom-based math problems. Conversely, students who are solely engaged in school excel in academic math but struggle significantly with practical market-related calculations.
“For the school kids, they do worse when you go from an abstract problem to a concrete problem,” Duflo, a professor at MIT and co-founder of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, said in a news release.
In a series of experiments conducted in Kolkata and Delhi, the researchers observed that children working in markets could accurately solve complex market transactions swiftly.
For instance, these kids could quickly determine the cost of 1.4 kilograms of onions sold at 15 rupees per kilogram or accurately calculate the change from a 200-rupee note after a purchase totaling 37 rupees.
However, their performance dipped drastically when faced with standardized academic math tests. Only 32% of working children correctly solved division problems involving three-digit numbers by one-digit numbers.
On the other hand, school-going children showed strong proficiency in academic math when given adequate time and resources but often failed to perform under simulated market conditions.
In one part of the study involving 200 students from 17 Delhi schools, only 60% managed to solve market-style math problems, despite having unlimited time and access to paper and pencil.
“That for me was always the revelation, that the one doesn’t translate into the other,” added Banerjee, the Ford Professor of Economics at MIT, emphasizing the core finding that proficiency in applied market math does not naturally extend to academic math skills.
The research team conducted further experiments to evaluate how both groups of children — market kids and school-goers — performed under various conditions. The results consistently showed a disconnect between the unique skills each group had honed, causing them to underperform in unfamiliar contexts.
“They learned an algorithm but didn’t understand it,” Banerjee added, referring to why school kids struggled with real-world application of math principles they usually excel in academically.
Duflo added, “The market kids are able to exploit base 10, so they do better on base 10 problems. The school kids have no idea.”
This gap underscores a fundamental need for educational systems to integrate practical and academic math skills, ensuring children can navigate both environments effectively. The findings suggest that blending intuitive, practical problem-solving methods with formal academic instruction could enhance overall math proficiency among children.
“These findings highlight the importance of educational curricula that bridge the gap between intuitive and formal mathematics,” the authors stated in the paper.