April Is Maths & Statistics Awareness Month. Where Does India Stand In The Global Scenario

Schools, colleges, research institutions and academic establishments are celebrating mathematics and related fields of study this month, as April has been officially declared as the Mathematics and Statistics Awareness month. Back in 1986, it was held for a week in the United States by many institutes such as American Mathematical Society and American Statistical Association among others. A week’s time was later expanded to a month in 1999, to increase and bring more awareness to mathematical learning. In 2017, Statistics was also included as a part of the awareness initiative to facilitate more practical learning towards the subject.

The Importance Of Mathematics And Statistics

The computing world is advancing at a rapid pace with terms such as ‘data’ and ‘analytics’ being the norm, and newer fields such as machine learning and artificial intelligence seeing an enormous growth. These fields necessitate learning and mastering subjects like mathematics and statistics, which often end up gaining lesser importance, due to their imagined complexities and difficulty levels. These branches are however applicable to almost every industry, even spanning critical areas such as cybersecurity and climate change among others. As technologies are getting complex, maths and statistics play an important role in simplifying things. The awareness is aimed at attracting more professionals and students towards the field to have a stronger base of researchers from across the globe.

Where Does The Research Stand In India?

The number of innovations and techniques in India is quite low in maths and statistics compared to other regions such as the Americas and Europe, but are growing substantially. Many premier institutes across India offer pure mathematical and statistical research programs for students and academics. Some of the popular ones which provide graduate to doctoral and postdoctoral courses are listed below:

• Indian Institute of Science (IISc)
• Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISER)
• The Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc)
• Indian Statistical Institute (ISI)
• Top education institutes such as Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and National Institutes of Technology (NITs)

Along with these, other establishments such as top engineering colleges which are segregated state-wise, also support research programs. Though the number of publications are growing in this field — with over 300 publications that showcased novel methods in the field across premiere institutes — they are fairly less compared to other countries. The mathematical applications since the last decade have even been extended to other branches of science, right from biology and chemistry to even specific, deep branches such as neuroscience and wireless networks.  

Learning Repositories Around Maths And Statistics

When it comes to learning mathematics and statistics, there are innumerable resources available online, in addition to textbooks, journals and similar material. These resources have a profound impact on the research aspects in the field. One might just run a Google search and stumble across a plethora of content related to these fields and be willing to learn and expand their knowledge base. Apart from traditional classroom-kind reading and learning concepts, people can practically visualise mathematical concepts through videos as well. Many popular websites such as Khan Academy offer video content for free to master basics in the field as well as get a solid grip on the advanced concepts.

Events And Activities That Promote These Tech Fields

To commemorate mathematics, statistics and numerous eminent people in the field with their achievements, many events are held across the globe in April every year. The events span from technical quizzes, seminars, lectures at mathematics departments in schools and colleges to national and international level olympiads and symposia, for both students and academics. In addition, there are interactive games which incorporate mathematical concepts to combine fun with learning. Emerging trends and techniques that are making news in mathematics and statistics, are the key highlights of these events that is aimed at broadening the knowledge of people around these subjects.

Conclusion:

Since mathematics and statistics have a broader reach in most of the themes, right from big data to analytics and data science, celebrating awareness about these subjects would only enhance research in these fields, reinforcing understanding of concepts along with learning. Various activities and campaigns designed around it would help familiarise people with maths and its growing importance in various fields.