Industry needs to do more to support maths teachers to teach the subject in a manner that helps students fully engage with the real-life applications of the subject, according to the Director General of Engineers Ireland, John Power.
Mr Power was speaking in the light of this year’s Leaving Certificate results. Only 16% of students sat this year’s higher-level maths paper.
While he found the latest figures for higher level maths “disappointing”, an Engineers Ireland survey last week of Leaving Cert maths students showed that 71% at higher level rated their maths teacher as excellent or good.
“This suggests there are a lot of strong teachers out there that have the respect and attention of their students,” he said. “What is needed to tackle the maths problem is much greater support for maths teachers in the classroom – and this needs to come not just from Government but from industry and business also.”
Project Maths
The preliminary data around Project Maths was encouraging, but it would be “two to five years before we have any meaningful data on the initiative”, he said.
The same Engineers Ireland survey found that students felt higher level maths was currently too time-consuming. “We need to give maths the time it deserves in the classroom. Bearing in mind the CAO uses six subjects to calculate points for third-level courses, there is an argument that students should only take six subjects during school time,” he said.
“This would allow teachers to focus on the key subjects, such as maths, that are integral to students finding jobs on graduating.”
Bonus points
Meanwhile the Minister for Education and Skills, Mary Coughlan, said this morning that bonus points for Leaving Cert maths would be introduced by 2012.
Learn more
Read the full Engineers Ireland media release
Read an overview of the Project Maths syllabuses
