Earlier this year, EdPublica reported on an unsettling truth emerging from a collaborative study by MIT and Indian education researchers: Indian children demonstrate impressive mathematical ability when navigating real-life situations—like calculating change in a vegetable market—but often fail when asked to solve similar problems in the classroom. The findings struck a chord, revealing a deep fracture between what children learn and how they learn it.

Now, new data from the government-backed PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan 2024 confirms the broader scale of that crisis. Together, the two reports offer a sobering diagnosis of foundational learning in India—and an urgent call to rethink how education is delivered.

The transfer gap: Street-smart, classroom-stranded

In the February study we reported on, researchers observed that children who work in markets—some out of necessity—could perform complex mental arithmetic swiftly and accurately. But the same children struggled with formal school problems like structured division or textbook subtraction. Meanwhile, their peers in schools did well on written math tests but faltered when asked to apply the same concepts in spontaneous, real-life situations.

This disconnect isn’t just about math—it’s about transferability. What good is education if it doesn’t translate beyond the exam sheet?

PARAKH’s alarming snapshot

The Performance Assessment, Review, and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development (PARAKH) is India’s new national assessment platform launched under the National Education Policy 2020. Managed by the NCERT in collaboration with CBSE and overseen by the Ministry of Education, PARAKH represents a shift away from traditional rote exams to competency-based evaluation.

Its first large-scale survey, conducted in December 2024 across 23 lakh students from Classes 3, 6, and 9, paints a picture that is both revealing and troubling.

In Class 3, only 55% of students could correctly sequence numbers up to 99 or perform simple addition and subtraction. By Class 6, just 53% had mastered multiplication tables up to 10. Math proficiency hovered at 46% overall. The pattern held across language and environmental studies as well.

Perhaps most alarming is the steady decline in foundational ability as students progress. What begins as a fragile grasp in Class 3 becomes a gaping void by Class 9.

Where you study matters

The data also revealed a curious twist: in Class 3, rural students marginally outperformed their urban peers in both math and language. But by Class 6 and 9, the urban students pulled ahead decisively. It suggests that whatever edge rural systems may offer in the early years is quickly lost due to resource constraints, poor infrastructure, or lack of academic support.

Meanwhile, central government-run schools—such as Kendriya Vidyalayas—consistently outperformed state-run and aided schools, particularly in mathematics. The gaps are not just between regions, but embedded within the structure of the system itself.

A system teaching at children, not with them

What both the MIT study and the PARAKH survey show is this: India’s education system, despite enormous progress in enrolment and infrastructure, still hasn’t solved the puzzle of meaningful learning. It teaches children how to arrive at the “right” answer on paper, but not how to reason, estimate, or solve problems in the real world.

This isn’t simply a curriculum issue—it’s pedagogical. Teachers often default to formulas and procedures, driven by syllabus completion and exam pressures. Conceptual understanding, critical thinking, and the space to make mistakes are rare in crowded classrooms with little support for differentiated learning.

Moving from numbers to nuance

To its credit, the Ministry of Education has recognized this crisis. The PARAKH framework is designed not just to assess but to inform change. Its next phase will involve teacher workshops, state- and district-level consultations, and detailed “health reports” of learning outcomes.

A country with one of the youngest populations in the world cannot afford a foundational crisis

But meaningful change will require more than data. It demands political will, sustained investment in teacher training, reduced pupil–teacher ratios, and a shift in classroom culture. Most of all, it requires a rethinking of what education is meant to do—not just pass students from one grade to the next, but prepare them for life.

The stakes couldn’t be higher

A country with one of the youngest populations in the world cannot afford a foundational crisis. Poor learning in early years compounds over time, leading to disengagement, dropout, and economic vulnerability. The students struggling to divide 96 by 8 today are tomorrow’s workforce—and the gaps in their learning will define the future of the nation.

If India wants to reap its much-discussed demographic dividend, it must invest in the one thing that can turn numbers into citizens, and citizens into leaders: deep, transferable learning.

A decade ago, a quiet crisis was unfolding in classrooms across the world—a crisis that continues to deepen. As the race to master STEM subjects quickens and strategic thinking becomes the gold standard of education, another essential pillar of learning is being pushed to the periphery: the arts.

In corridors where brush strokes once danced, and where theatre, music and storytelling ignited young minds, silence now lingers. Time and resources are reallocated. Arts periods shrink. Drama rooms gather dust. And with every such decision, we inch closer to a narrow, fragmented vision of what it means to educate a human being.

This cultural shift—palpable in countries like India—has been unsettling for educators and researchers who have long argued that art is not an elective luxury, but an essential ingredient of a well-rounded education. One such voice is that of Dr. Ellen Winner, a leading scholar of arts education, who warned in an interview with this author nine years ago: “When schools cut short the time reserved for the arts and redirect it to what they call ‘important’ subjects, they’re not just risking the future of potential artists. They’re losing out on the inventors, the empathetic leaders, the bold thinkers of tomorrow.”

Her message was clear. The arts do not merely decorate our cultural fabric—they weave it. Ellen Winner, a leading expert in the psychology of art, is Professor Emerita of Psychology at Boston College and a Senior Research Associate at Project Zero. She is the author of five books, including Invented Worlds (1982), The Point of Words (1988), Gifted Children (1996), How Art Works (2019), and An Uneasy Guest in the Schoolhouse (2022). She has also co-authored five influential titles in arts education, notably the Studio Thinking series and The Child as Visual Artist (2022).

More Than a Side Show

To ask, “What is the role of the arts in shaping a person?” is to ask what kind of world we want to build. For centuries, societies have turned to art not just for beauty, but for insight—for truth. From ancient cave paintings to Renaissance frescoes to street murals that challenge injustice today, art has never been a passive pursuit. It has always spoken, always provoked, always taught.

And yet, as Dr. Winner noted in our conversation, “The arts are the only school subjects constantly required to prove their usefulness.”

Imagine applying the same standard to history, or even to sports. Suppose a school coach claimed that playing baseball boosts students’ math scores due to statistical scoring. If researchers debunked the claim, would school boards eliminate baseball from the curriculum? Of course not. Because we instinctively know that athletics builds discipline, teamwork, resilience. That it matters. So why not extend the same understanding to the arts?

Beyond the Test Scores

It is tempting—and common—for policymakers to justify the arts in terms of their “spillover effects” on math or reading. And indeed, there is research that shows a correlation: students exposed to the arts tend to perform better across disciplines. But relying solely on this line of defense, Dr. Winner cautioned, is dangerous.

The arts are not new. They have outlived empires. They have inspired revolutions. And they have told the stories of civilizations long after their rulers and battles were forgotten

“Arts education must not be justified only by its secondary benefits,” she said. “If we do that, we grant permission for it to be cut whenever those benefits don’t show up clearly on a chart.”

The truth is, arts education offers something far deeper. It cultivates imagination, nurtures curiosity, and fosters emotional intelligence. It teaches us to live with ambiguity, to see from multiple perspectives, to create from chaos. These are not fringe skills. These are survival skills—in life, and in leadership.

A Legacy We Must Honour

The arts are not new. They have outlived empires. They have inspired revolutions. And they have told the stories of civilizations long after their rulers and battles were forgotten.

Dr. Winner, summarizing a lifetime of scholarship, told me this:

“Let’s bet on history. Cultures have always been remembered by their art. The arts predate the sciences. Education that excludes them is impoverished—and it leads to an impoverished society.”

We would never teach a child only numbers and grammar and send them out into the world. Yet when we sideline the arts, that’s exactly what we do. We deny them the tools to feel deeply, to question power, to imagine alternatives. We deny them the full experience of being human.

Looking ahead

This is not a plea for token inclusions. It is a call for equal footing. The arts must not sit at the kiddie table of education, forever proving their worth. They are the worth. Just as we revere science for its logic and discovery, we must revere art for its meaning and soul.

It is time to recalibrate. To reclaim the arts not as an extra, but as essential. Not just because they improve test scores—but because they improve lives.

Because in the end, we are remembered not for how efficiently we solved equations—but for the songs we sang, the stories we told, and the visions we dared to paint on the canvas of our times.

In a world as diverse as ours, it’s no surprise that we each learn in our own unique way. While some of us excel through reading, others thrive through hands-on experiences or visual aids. These distinct ways of absorbing, processing, and retaining information are not just random; they’re deeply tied to our personal preferences—what we now call “learning styles.” But the concept of learning styles isn’t as modern as it may seem. In fact, it’s a topic that has captured the attention of thinkers for centuries, and it’s only more recently that educators have come to fully appreciate its impact in the classroom.

A historical perspective

The idea of individual differences in learning can be traced back to ancient times. Aristotle, in 334 BC, was one of the first to recognize that every child possesses unique talents and skills. His keen observations laid the groundwork for a deeper understanding of individual differences in learning—a concept that would evolve over centuries.

Fast forward to the early 1900s, when the study of personality theories and the relationship between memory and instructional methods began to gain traction. Despite this growing interest, research on learning styles temporarily lost its momentum due to the dominance of the intelligence quotient (IQ) in measuring academic success. However, the second half of the twentieth century saw a revival, sparked in part by the groundbreaking theory of Multiple Intelligences introduced by Howard Gardner in the 1980s. Suddenly, educators and researchers began to see learning styles not as an afterthought, but as an integral component of how we teach and learn.

Defining learning styles

What exactly are learning styles? At its core, a learning style is an individual’s preferred method of processing information. James W. Keefe, a prominent scholar in the field, defines learning styles as the distinctive cognitive, affective, and physiological behaviours that shape how learners interact with their environment (Keefe, J. W. (1979). Learning style: An overview. In J. W. Keefe (Ed.), Student learning styles and brain behavior (pp. 1–17).). He describes these styles as “comparatively stable indications” of how a learner engages with information.

Educational researchers Kenneth Dunn and Rita Dunn provide a more detailed definition, saying learning styles are “the way in which each person absorbs and retains information and/or skills.” ( Dunn, R., & Dunn, K. (1993). Teaching secondary students through their individual learning styles: Practical approaches for grades 7–12.) In essence, these are the deeply ingrained tendencies that make one person excel through hands-on practice, while another thrives in a lecture setting.

Meanwhile, Tan Dingliang offers a broader perspective, defining learning styles as “the way a learner often adopts in the learning process,” emphasizing that these preferences are not just limited to information retention but extend to strategies, stimuli, and even social learning tendencies.( Tan, D. (2003). A theoretical framework for understanding learning styles. Journal of Education Research, 31(2), 123–134)

In simpler terms, a learning style is the unique way an individual learns best. It’s the approach—whether visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, or otherwise—that makes certain information click. While a learning style and a cognitive style may overlap, the former is more about the practical application of learning, and the latter focuses on problem-solving approaches based on intellectual thinking.

Why learning styles matter in education

Understanding learning styles isn’t just academic—it’s essential for creating an environment where every student has the opportunity to thrive. Imagine a classroom where a teacher uses the same teaching method for all students—whether it’s reading from a textbook or lecturing. While this might work for some, others may struggle to grasp the material. The reality is that not every student learns the same way. This is where the relevance of learning styles comes into play.

In simpler terms, a learning style is the unique way an individual learns best. It’s the approach—whether visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, or otherwise—that makes certain information click

A one-size-fits-all approach to teaching can inadvertently leave some students behind. When teachers recognize and adapt to the diverse learning styles in their classrooms, they create opportunities for all students to engage meaningfully with the material. Learning styles aren’t just a theoretical concept; they should directly influence teaching strategies and the way educators design their curriculum.

Research by Dewar and Hartman suggests that students who are actively involved in their learning process are more likely to succeed. When learners feel in control of their education—by engaging in methods that cater to their strengths—they experience an increase in motivation and self-esteem. This sense of autonomy over their learning journey leads to better outcomes and a deeper connection to the material.

The connection to Multiple Intelligences

The importance of learning styles is closely linked to the theory of Multiple Intelligences, which posits that intelligence isn’t a single, measurable trait, but rather a collection of distinct abilities. Gardner’s theory identifies several types of intelligence, including linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic. Each student may excel in different areas, and recognizing this diversity is essential for fostering an inclusive and effective learning environment.

This is where the concept of learning styles aligns with Gardner’s theory. A teacher who understands that students may have a preference for a particular style of learning—whether they process information best through images, physical activity, or auditory cues—can tailor their teaching strategies to engage all types of intelligence. Acknowledging that one size doesn’t fit all is the key to unlocking the potential of every learner.

The future of learning: A personalized approach

So, what does the future hold for learning styles? As research continues to evolve, the message is clear: there is no universal method that works for every student. Teachers must embrace the diversity of learning preferences in their classrooms. By using a variety of teaching methods and recognizing the unique strengths of each student, educators can create a dynamic learning environment where every individual has the opportunity to succeed.

Ultimately the lesson is simple: in a world where every learner is different, embracing diversity in how we learn is not just beneficial—it’s essential. And the more we understand about these differences, the better equipped we are to foster environments where every learner can reach their full potential.