March 29, 2022

By Charles de Souza*

About a month ago, schools in Mumbai reopened for live in-person classes. After school, some of the students who live with their families in tiny, over-crowded rooms, study at libraries, including one near where I live.

Each day at the library, I volunteer to teach math and science to ten students in the 9th standard, or grade. Some of them attend reputed schools while others are at free schools run by the city municipality.  

On my very first day of tutoring, I found that the students, including those attending the reputed schools, were unable to add, subtract, multiply and divide even at the fifth standard level. They were very far from being able to solve problems with fractions, squares, cubes and roots as required for their level.

I was very surprised since I had not seen such a wide gap in skills before. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, each year I tutored students in the final years of high school. Their parents, whom I know through relatives and friends, sought my help.

While these students were weak in math, physics and chemistry, they were not too far behind in their level of understanding for their class. After about four weeks of tutoring, I saw a marked improvement in some of them.  

In contrast, the education of the students I am currently tutoring was severely impaired by the absence of in-person classes during the past two pandemic years, their 8th and 9th standard level years. Based on what I see, the online classes were of no help for most students from low-income families in Mumbai. This is despite official claims of the benefits gotten by using the latest technology.

On the contrary, as has been widely reported, many of the young students, who had to rely on their smartphones during the pandemic, have gotten addicted to watching videos on WhatsApp and playing online games. I do not allow my students to have their cellphones on.  

Evidently the teachers had little experience running online classes. Also, they were focused on completing the courses assigned for the school year. There was little remote supervision and so teachers were unable to track whether a student was practicing accurate or inaccurate strategies and, therefore, could not correct errors, especially in math.

In turn, the students were unable to learn by viewing online classes on the small screens of their smartphones. Furthermore, remote learning assumes they were able to focus for four hours each school day, amidst the conversations among family members and noise from the TV in their tiny dwellings.    

I find the damage is less severe in subjects like languages, history and some science courses, such as biology. This is because the answers are highlighted in the textbooks and students are asked to memorize them. As a result, since they do not understand what they are memorizing there is little or no advancement in their level of knowledge.

In the few weeks the schools were open this year, the teachers continued to focus on completing the assigned course work for the ninth standard. The math teachers raced through trigonometry, coordinate geometry, financial planning and basic statistics. The teachers, though, are not to blame since they are merely following the procedures laid down by the Education Department. Also, even if they wanted to help weak students individually, they are unable to do so since the classes are large with 60 or more students.

The students I am tutoring this year are similar in economic background to those I tutored in previous years. They are from low-income families. Most of the parents work as domestic workers, drivers and cooks in Mumbai; some work in Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries. The COVID related education gap must be much wider for students from poor families in India.

Two decades ago, I decided to tutor students since I had a tough time studying math while at the Sacred Heart School in Mumbai. It was a reputed school, a hybrid between a free government-run and a fee-charging private institution. But being largely subsidized by the government, there were 50 or more students in each class. The teachers, who had a packed schedule, did not have the time to help slow learners like me.

During the math class, the numbers looked like a bunch of scribbles. I barely passed the math exams. Yet I did not hate math and admired my fellow students who were good at it.

Later, I realized that most fields of study and work require basic math skills. So, after earning a degree in English Literature and a degree in Library Science, I devoted several hours each week to learning math through self-study. As a result, I finally came to understand what an algebraic equation meant.

While the students I tutor are struggling, the experience has been different for many of the students attending the top private schools in Mumbai. Their parents got them the laptops and software needed to follow classes online. Teachers were trained to teach online, and they gave students regular assignments and checked on them. They also communicated often with the students through phone calls and messaging.

Perhaps equally important, the parents hired additional tutors to assist their children during the pandemic. Friends who teach at elite private schools in the city say they see little negative effect on most of their students. In fact, they find some of the top students have accelerated their learning and acquired new, advanced computer skills.

The final school exams began last week and are spread out over two weeks. But since all students will be promoted to the next class, irrespective of how they fare on the exam, I don’t feel the tension of trying to complete all the topics.

From my own experience, I realize that in order to be good at math, you need lots of practice. With practice comes understanding and with understanding life-long memory. This is similar to learning any other skill, such as playing a guitar or piano – which I have also done.

So, as in past years, I focus on teaching the basics with lots of practice examples. Already, I see that the students are taking much less time to solve problems and are making fewer mistakes. Their faces light up when they are able to solve a problem that they earlier thought was beyond them.

Also, each day, the students are expected to ask me a question. I tell them that I may not know the answer, but we can find out together. After overcoming their initial reluctance, they have asked me about the universe, black holes and light years. These are questions from children not considered the brightest, based on their performance at exams.

As part of my answer to their wonderings, we watched the spectacular photos of the Universe from the Hubble telescope and the recently launched James Webb Telescope. One day this week, I found that nearly three hours had passed since the start of the class and the students showed no inclination of wanting to leave. This, alone, gives me much hope.

*Charles de Souza, is a trustee of Parisar Asha, an education philanthropy in Mumbai. He was formerly with Citicorp Overseas Software and Science Today.  

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