Girls good at geometry, ‘everyday’ maths, boys excel in operations, data handling

Did you know that when it comes to subjects such as geometry and everyday maths, girls are ahead of boys?

According to a study conducted by Cuemath, a maths-learning programme for children, around 61 per cent of girls are more accurate in these two subjects and have better accuracy than boys.

Cuemath has come out with this study in the backdrop of the National Mathematics Day, which was celebrated on Friday.

However, boys need not lose heart. The study reveals that 68 per cent of boys are smarter than girls in numbers and operations and data handling.

Interestingly, those who participated in the survey, found algebra, integers, rational and geometry as the most difficult subjects. The data was compiled from tests taken by Cuemath during their class hours on a regular basis.

Currently, 20,000 students, ranging from 5 years to 13 years, are enrolled in the programme. The home-based after-school, multi-format math learning programme was launched on December 22, 2013, and now has 2,500 centres across India. The six cities that participated in the survey are Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai.

Manan Khurma, founder and CEO of Cuemath, told BusinessLine that the survey was to assess the interests maths evoked in children.

“Maths is more than a subject, so the idea for launching Cuemath was to build strong maths foundation from childhood. We teach not only what is taught in other institutes, but also focus on other subjects such as logical reasoning and aptitude tests,” he said. Students, from class 1 to 3, were good in everyday maths, while those from class 4 to 8 stood out in arithmetic.

Among the cities, Delhi students had better alphanumeric skills. On the other hand, in Mumbai, students were good at strong spatial skills, and their performance in mensuration stood out. Bengaluru outsmarted all cities in geometry, and Chennai ruled in number sense.

Students from Hyderabad were found to have good calculation skills and their everyday performance in maths was better than others.

Logical skills and data handling were the key strengths of students from Pune.