Countingwell — a supplementary math learning app/online platform owned by Illuminati Learning Solutions Pvt. Ltd — released its State of Math Learning Report 2021 in early January highlighting the decline in math learning skills and outcomes of middle school children countrywide. The report analysed data of 75,000 class VI-VIII students from the learning cycles, assessments and tests taken on the Countingwell Maths learning digital app over the pandemic year 2021. The key findings of the nationwide report are: • Poor word problem comprehension i.e, lack of English language skills is a major contributor to low math learning outcomes. • One in five students lack basic calculation skills learnt in previous classes. • One of ten class VIII students is lagging behind in math skills because they have not mastered concepts that they should have learned in previous classes. This learning gap increases as students move to higher classes. • Students witness a drastic drop in math scores from class VII onwards as they begin solving more complex problems that require application of multiple concepts. • Students from tier II and III cities such as Varanasi, Madurai, Indore, Jabalpur, Vapi, Nashik and Bharuch performed on a par with peers in metro cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru. • Male students fare better in math learning outcomes than girls, but the gap is marginal. The widest gender gap is in comprehension. While it was already quite low for both genders, boys did better than girls • Weakest comprehension is in math concepts such as fractions, ratio and proportion, algebra, and decimals. “The objective of the report is to understand, analyse and highlight the maths skills of middle-school children. We chose middle school as this is the stage during which math content becomes progressively complex and students begin to lose interest in the subject. Our goal was to understand the factors that influence maths learning and interest levels of middle school students. Our study found that poor understanding of concepts, reduced parental involvement in monitoring math learning at home, and increase in difficulty levels were some of the reasons attributed to the drastic drop in math scores in class VII students,” says Nirmal Shah, a chemistry alum of Madras University whose entrepreneurial journey began 24 years ago (Advanced Technology Labs, Chennai TESCRA, Bengaluru, Trade2Gain, Delhi), and co-founder of Countingwell. Prompted by the struggles of their own children in learning math in school, Nirmal Shah and Ravi Jitani, a commerce and business management alumnus of Delhi University and INSEAD with over two decades of rich working experience (Fujitsu Consulting, Aureos Capital etc) co-promoted Countingwell in 2018. Headquartered in Bengaluru, Countingwell’s fully remote teams operate from New Delhi to Jaipur in the north to Salem and Honnavar in the south. The company offers well-researched and specially designed app-based math learning study programmes mapped to the prescribed middle school (class VI-VIII) syllabus; a blended learning programme for schools and teachers, and career guidance and counseling programmes in careers of the future. Countingwell’s team of curriculum developers…
