Simplified

Is mathematics the purest form of learning? Depending on your educational disposition, you might agree with XKCD or not. But I don’t think you will have problems accepting that a basic understanding of mathematics is necessary to navigate through and succeed against the complexities of life.

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A new study conducted by World Bank economists pitted the Indian states of Orissa and Rajasthan against 51 countries of the world on their mathematics achievement in grade school [via]. The results show these states coming in at 42 and 46 respectively with 40 and 30 percent of students failing a low international benchmark. Sad, but not very surprising, given the state of public education in India.

The variance of the data, however, makes the story interesting. A large disparity exists between the worst and best performers.

“… the difference between the top 5 percent and bottom 5 percent in both states is among the highest in the world, next only to South Africa. Students at the bottom of the distribution in both states score similarly or worse than the bottom students in the three worst performing countries. At the same time, students at the top of the distribution score higher than the top students in other low performing countries, and higher than the median student in all but the best countries. The top 5 percent of students in Orissa, for example, score higher than the median student in more than 42 of 46 countries tested in 2003.”

The authors stress that those who defend the quality of Indian education by pointing to the number of Indians competitive in the global knowledge economy, might be way off the mark.

This is a beautiful example of how averages can sometimes be very misleading.

The conclusion is particularly insightful,

How this situation plays out over the next decade has much to do with how production technologies evolve in the labor market. If Indian firms manage to adopt “Ford Model-T” technologies that require a handful of highly skilled and educated workers to match with a large number of unskilled workers, India shining can act as a “rising tide that lifts all boats.” But if Indian firms adopt “McKinsey” technologies that require skilled workers and unskilled workers to match among themselves (as the IT consulting firms require, but not necessarily call-centers) it is likely that the country will be characterized by increasing inequalities; an enclave of a few privileged and self-perpetuating rich surrounded by a majority poor.

India shining and Bharat drowning: comparing two Indian states to the worldwide distribution in mathematics achievement, Jishnu Das and Tristan Zajonc [PDF].