Over 900 researchers and educators have urged the University Grants Commission (UGC) to withdraw the draft curriculum for mathematics, on the grounds that it is “riddled with grave defects, and if adopted, will damage the prospects of generations of students.”
Last month, the UGC released the draft undergraduate curriculum for nine subjects including mathematics, and invited comments on them.
A petition sent to the UGC chairman has urged the UGC to withdraw the draft and form a new committee comprising expert mathematicians and teachers of undergraduate mathematics to redraft the curriculum.
Mahan Mj, professor of mathematics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and a Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar awardee, who is among those who signed the petition, said the draft curriculum has errors of both omission & commission.
“We have been accustomed to incremental changes. This kind of drastic overhaul has not happened before,” he added.
The omissions the petition refers to include inadequate coverage of topics such as algebra, real analysis and applied math.
Mahan said analysis is a fundamental tool and spending one semester on it, as the draft curriculum suggests, is woefully inadequate.
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“We suggested at least three, preferably four, courses on analysis of different kinds,” he added.
Algebra has been short-changed, he pointed out, adding that at least three courses in algebra would be necessary in the undergraduate curriculum.
