MUMBAI: Community Radio Station, Radio MUST has started a show called ‘Radio Mathematics’ for people of all age groups with the sole purpose of resonating the importance of the subject in our daily lives. The show started on 1 November, 2014 and will end on 31 October 2015. 60 episodes have already been aired, while the remaining episodes will focus on Mathematics in sports. The previous episodes are available on the community radio’s website, Soundcloud and Facebook page. The initiative was taken by Department of Science and Technology, Government of India.
“Most of the times we hear that a lot of students fear Mathematics or they find topics like Trigonometry and Quadratic Equations irrelevant. But unknowingly we are surrounded by Math, whether it is for playing a guitar or booking an air ticket, we use the basic principles of the subject. We also have involved psychologists to find out why students hate Mathematics, and most of the time the root cause is that teachers do not give interesting examples to students. If a student fails or passes with lower grades, he or she avoids the subject and ends up taking an alternate career which does not have that subject,” said MUST head Pankaj Athavale. The shows are funded by the Government of India.
Apart from psychologists, the panel has also tied up with a few B.Ed and D.Ed colleges which will also offer teachers different ways to teach the subject. They also have a lot of students from the University who are a part of the panel. Towards the end of the one hour show, the station also has a few jingles and ‘shayris’ that are based on the subject.
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The upcoming episode will feature a hockey player who talks about importance of Mathematics in sports. “Right from the selection of hockey sticks to positions to passing and scoring a goal for the team, everything involves Math. The players use the principle of Pythagoras theorem. So a good statistician can make money from sports,” explained Athavale.
The new episodes are aired every alternate day at 9 a.m. and are repeated in the afternoon at 1 p.m. and in the evening at 7 p.m. Despite the limited reach of the community radio, the show has 70- 80 thousand devoted listeners. Currently, MUST is concentrating on ‘Radio Mathematics’, but intends to come up with another show about the traffic in Mumbai.
