'File 19/248 I (C 78) Education at Bahrain' [‎105r] (226/494)

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Now about Arithmetic. The standard of Arithmetic at all the Bahrain
schools is very low—it is probably the weakest subject of all. Serious steps
will have to be taken to improve the teaching of this subject in the near
future, if Bahrain boys are going to be considered by employers of labour to
be worth employing. I was shown by the headmasters of the Manamah
and Muharraq schools a number of question-papers in Mathematics which
they told me had been set to their pupils at the end of the year. The
questions were of a high standard, and although I was not shown any of
the answers I was assured that the boys were well able to cope with them :
but these assurances do not at all agree with what I was told by people
who have bad actual experience of Bahrain schoolboys as employees. The
Employment Officer of the Bahrain Oil Company and the Manager of the
Eastern Bank both told me that, much as they would like to do so, it is
almost impossible to offer Bahrain schoolboys any of the better posts—in the
case of the Bank, any post at all—owing to their invariable inability to
carry out accurately the simplest mathematical calculations. I am satis
fied that these statements are correct, for such complaints are not confined
to Bahrain, but are made by European employers of labour all over the
Middle East. In Persia, for example, the standard of education—especially
mathematical education-is so low that oil companies there have been ob
liged to establish their own schools, in order to ensure that their youthful
employees thall be properly educated ; and in one of the neighbouring Arab
states, where large sums of money are spent on education, it is rare to find
a post-office official who can give one his correct change without
first making a laborious calculation with pencil and paper. The reason
why the standard of mathematical ability in the Middle East is so low,
while it is so high in India, is that in the Middle East boys are taught to
learn by heart and to imitate, but never to think for themselves. The Arab
student can solve quite successfully the mathematical problems which he
finds in his school text-book, because all those problems follow closely some
regular model which he has learned by heart how to solve. But confront him
with a mathematical problem from real life—one which does not take ex
actly the same form as those given in his school Arithmetic book—and he
is hopelessly lost, and unable even to attempt it.
We shall see no improvement in the standard of mathematics in the
Bahrain schools until we alter our methods of teaching and train boys to
think, rather than to learn by heart and to imitate. This question of
the mathematical teaching is one to which the new controller will have to
give his early and earnest attention, if we are to be able to satisfy
employers of labour that our boys are worth appointing to any of the
better posts. He may find it necessary to advise the Education Depart
ment to engage abler teachers of this subject. If this is done, it misht be
a good plan to look to India for teachers of mathematics, rather than to
any of the Arab countries. I suggest that your Highness should instruct
the new controller to prepare a special report for the Education Department
on the question of the teaching of mathematics.