Article: Drawing a bead on maths education; Here's a system that uses a 3000-year-old invention - the abacus - to instill a love for calculation.(News)

BYLINE: Nomusa Cembi

It took a 6-year-old to change Tazmin Motani's perception of mathematics.

Motani was on a business trip to India last year when she saw a friend's 6-year-old son excitedly and passionately doing sums, getting answers in seconds, without using a calculator. Motani thought he was a genius.

But the boy's mother said he had acquired the skills using Abacus Mental Arithmetic (Ucmas).

"I decided there and then that I wanted it for my children. At that time, my 6-year old was only enthusiastic about PlayStation and Liverpool Football Club. I came back home and I read as much as I could about Ucmas," said Motani.

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