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Young minds not pursuing maths, says PM
Monday December 26, 2011 09:42:10 PM,
IANS
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Chennai: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Monday
expressed concern that young minds with a natural ability for
mathematics were not pursuing the discipline at an advanced level,
resulting in a "decline in the quality of maths teachers at the
school and college level".
In his inaugural speech at a function to mark the 125th birth
anniversary of eminent mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, the
prime minister said there was a "general perception that pursuit
of maths does not lead to attractive career possibilities".
"This perception may have been valid some years ago but today
there are many new career opportunities available to
mathematicians and the teaching profession itself has become much
more attractive in recent years," he said.
He declared 2012 as the National Mathematics Year and Dec 22, the
day Ramanujan was born, as Mathematics Day.
"The mathematical community has the duty to find ways and means to
address the shortage of top quality mathematicians in the country.
It must reach out to the public, especially in the modern context
where mathematics has tremendous influence on every kind of human
endeavour," he said.
Stating that mathematics can be regarded as the mother science,
Manmohan Singh said natural sciences have had a symbiotic
relationship with mathematics.
"Life Sciences did not seem to have much use for mathematics till
about a hundred years ago, but lately mathematical interventions
have had tremendous impact on biology," he said.
A noted economist himself, Manmohan Singh said: "The work of many
of the Nobel laureates in Economics is highly mathematical."
"Aryabhata in the fifth century, followed by Brahmagupta in the
next are recorded to be among the all-time great mathematicians.
And we taught the world to think of zero as a number and the
modern way of representing all numbers with 10 symbols," the prime
minister remarked.
He said Indian mathematics continued to remain in the forefront
after Aryabhata almost for a thousand years and cited Madhava to
have discovered the essentials of Calculus.
After a long gap, it was during the second decade of 20th century
that the country could once again stake claim to producing world
class mathematics and that was because of Ramanujan, he said.
Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal, also precent at
the occasion, said Ramanujan's life shows that it is not necessary
to have a regular university degree.
Union Ministers G.K. Vasan, Jayanthi Natarajan, V.Narayanasamy
were also present at the function.
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