The court has asked boards to take the advice of experts and revert by July 26, on whether the suggestion can be implemented.
The Bombay High Court on Monday suggested to all education boards that they consider having mathematics as an optional subject for Class 10 to help students clear school and go on to graduate from college.
A division bench of Justice VM Kanade and Justice AK Menon said, "You will open doors to a large number of students who are unable to cope up with mathematics and eventually dropped out." The court observed that 90 per cent of students drop out of school because they fail to clear mathematics and English examinations.
The court has asked boards to take the advice of experts and revert by July 26, on whether the suggestion can be implemented.
The court cited how before 1975, students of Secondary School Certificate (SSC) could appear for eight papers including general maths, and even if they failed to clear the maths paper they were considered as passed.
The bench was of the view that, "If such an option was available then students pursuing streams like Arts, which doesn't require maths, can complete their graduation degree."
The direction was given during the hearing of a petition filed by Dr Harish Shetty seeking to highlight the problem of learning disabilities among students and adequate steps not being taken by education boards and schools for early detection.
State Education Minister Vinod Tawde said that the court's observation was in-keeping with the government's plan back in 2016 to make the subject optional. "The government was mulling making mathematics optional at school level. The decision was, however, criticised by some media outlets and a few mathematics teachers as a result of which it could not be implemented. Now that the court has suggested, we will implement this change soon," said Tawde.
Dr Shetty informed the court that the SSC board has provided data of students detected with learning disabilities, but other boards are yet to provide the same to help work out future remedial measures. The court asked all boards to provide ten-year data on steps it has taken to help students with learning disabilities. Moreover, it asked the Union government to collate data from across the country on students suffering from learning disabilities and to come out with remedial measures.
The court was also assured by education boards about proper implementation of a previous order asking all schools to screen children, preferably in primary classes, to help in early detection of learning disabilities.
Bombay HC had earlier said that apart from conducting medical tests of students to find out whether they have learning disabilities or not, one other method which could be deployed by school authorities was to examine those students who had scored well in studies earlier, but had not done well in the recent year.
The court had also asked schools and educational institutions to keep the records confidential and if a child is detected with learning disability, not to make it public.
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