Article
Maths skills lacking among school leavers warns teachers' report
A-level and other post-16 education qualifications not stretching enough for many university courses
Teenagers are leaving school without the maths skills they need. Photograph: Jeffrey Coolidge/Getty Images
Teenagers are leaving school without the maths knowledge they need for university or the workplace, an influential committee of maths teachers has warned.
A report by the advisory committee on maths education said maths A-level and other post-16 education qualifications were not demanding enough for many university courses.
Prof Dame Julia Higgins, chair of the committee, which advises the government, said universities were having to "downgrade" the maths required to get on to many of their courses.
"In the last 30 years many university subjects have become more mathematical, but the number of students with the appropriate level of mathematical skills has not risen far enough to match this," she said.
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User Comments
drago1
14 June 2011 8:08AM
Maths A level has been demonstrated to be a more significant indicator of future high earnings than any other educational award.
The trouble is many maths teachers in State comp sixth forms cannot do A level maths sufficiently well to guide their students through the course, let alone get the A and A* grades needed for university entrance.
muscleguy
14 June 2011 8:46AM
It is true that you need maths more than ever before. Enrol in an undergraduate biology course these days and in first year you will likely be required to do, and pass, a course of maths, stats and relevant physics which comes as a shock to those doing biology to avoid such subjects. Wake up kids, biology has become a very much more numerate science than ever before. We need people who understand more stats than a t-test, who know enough SQL to interrogate a database and can talk to colleagues working on the weather, on hydrological flow through ecosystems etc.
Our youngest is plugged into the zeitgeist, she is doing a double major in compsci and genetics with a view to a career in bioinformatics*. Don't know what bioinformatics is? Then you are behind the times.
*Many of the job ads for bioinformaticists say that salary is negotiable.
adlad
14 June 2011 8:51AM
@ drago1
The trouble is many maths teachers in State comp sixth forms cannot do A level maths sufficiently well to guide their students through the course, let alone get the A and A* grades needed for university entrance.
Evidence? Maths teachers are overwhelmingly Maths graduates, who got their Maths degrees in 'the past' which would mean, in the strange little world of your assumptions, that they got them when it was harder to get onto the courses and harder to get the degrees. These people aren't good enough at maths to teach A level? I think you're making it up.
goto
14 June 2011 8:55AM
This article has been multiplied by an unknown factor, and its total appears here
Imageark
14 June 2011 10:27AM
Lost Pound
Three guys staying in a hotel. One of the guys leaves his mates packing in their room and goes down to reception to pay their bill. The manager tells him their bill comes to £30.
( Cheap hotel, I know). The man gives the manager the £30, and goes back up to his room.
The manager realizes he has over charged, and asks the bell boy to take £5 up to the man and apologise.
Whilst in the lift the bell boy decides to keep £2 for himself and give the men £3.
So each of the three men get £1 back. Which means they have each paid £9.
Well. 3 X £9 = £27. Agreed?
So, £27 + the £2 the bell boy kept = £29.
Where’s the other freaking Pound gone?
howardmarch
14 June 2011 11:17AM
In case anybody is cant see the solution to Imageark's puzzle, the bell boy has £2, which is a credit, and is included in the £27 the men have paid, which is a debit so there is no reason to add the two amounts.
At the end of the transaction, the £30 was shared as men £3, (bell boy + hotel) £27.
muscleguy
14 June 2011 1:17PM
@Imageark
£30 - £5 = £25 + 3 = £28
The distribution sum is 25/3, not 27/3. You will always come to the wrong answer using the wrong sum.
republicantraveller
14 June 2011 1:44PM
Would these concerns have been expressed in the 1950's, i.e., when we still had Grammar schools?
JedBartlett
14 June 2011 6:56PM
Gussy - Yes but....
Although you would not know it from the coverage, numbers of people entering for A-Level maths has shot up. Admittedly this is from a low base, but (and the ACME report was oddly quiet on the point) the rise is real.
Gussy
14 June 2011 1:44AM
I think one of the key issues here is that the usefulness of maths for a variety of future courses/careers is not being explained to youngsters. It's connections to other subjects is not highlighted, and so many pupils who wonder as to its relevance are not considering it as a subject to study post-16. Many maths educators are quite insular and in some ways, elitist. Maths is a subject 'in itself' but for most pupils, it is a tool to aid study and practice in other fields, such as science, engineering, social science and business. Teaching maths as if it were stand alone, and not connected to the real world puts many pupils off. Motivation to study maths for many is low, and that affects attainment. WIthout incorporating real world contexts, the battle to demonstrate relevance is lost. For those maths teachers reading this, google "cre8ate maths" to find a set of resources for 11-14 year olds that tries to bridge this gap.