Math is important but should it be compulsory?

Teachers that count
Data from the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) for 2013 show around 40 percent of Year 7-10 and 24 percent of Year 11-12 math teachers are teaching out of their field.

Furthermore, 15 percent of Year 7-10 and 9 percent of Year 11-12 math teachers have studied only one year of tertiary math, and 62 percent of Year 7-10 and 78 percent of Year 11-12 math teachers have less than five years math teaching experience.

Making math compulsory certainly won’t fix that.

Calling for compulsory math study in Year 12 entirely misses the point. The concern about the poor levels of math skills of our high school students must surely be a concern about the math skills of students who do study math at Year 12 and beyond.

Over the past ten years at least, although the total proportion of students studying Year 12 math has remained stable at around 80 percent. The trend around the country has been for students studying math to take lower levels of math.

Assumed knowledge
There are a variety of reasons for this downward trend, and we in the tertiary sector, should acknowledge that we are in part responsible. Many Australian universities have removed hard prerequisites as entry requirements for engineering, science and commerce degree programs, opting instead for an assumed knowledge model.

But how do prospective students interpret that phrase and respond to it? In a recent ABC 7.30 Report story Australia’s Chief Scientist, Professor Ian Chubb, called on universities to tell students that math is prerequisite for particular pathways of study. And for good reason.

When universities remove math prerequisites from entry to degree programs for which mathematical knowledge is clearly needed, what message are we sending to schools and students about the importance of math to these programs? Do we tell students what the consequences of not being adequately prepared in math will be in relation to their pathways, retention and chance of success in their degree?

If we don’t (and I don’t think we do) why are we surprised when students make choices that will maximize their ATAR scores, since this is really what we are using as our selection instrument?

In June 2013, a workshop was held as part of the First Year in Maths project (funded by the Office of Learning and Teaching) where academics from around the country identified, overwhelmingly, that dealing with under-prepared students was their major challenge.

To date the project team has conducted thirty-six interviews with academics from around twenty-two universities across the country, and the picture emerging is that students don’t necessarily have the required assumed knowledge, sometimes far from it.

A solution?
This week academics and from across mathematics, science and engineering as well as peak education bodies with gather for a two day forum, Assumed knowledge in math: Its broad impact on tertiary STEM programs. The aim is to obtain a clearer picture of the broad impact that the absence of math prerequisites is having in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programs.

An outcome of this forum could be an articulation of a baseline for math preparation for students wishing to study tertiary level math and science. Optimistically, this might also be nuanced in ways that catered for the various institutional differences and the particular requirements of the degree programs of universities across the country.

Whatever the outcome of this and other debates on the state of mathematics, the problem of declining math skills is complex and its solution will not be easy, quick or as straightforward as making math compulsory. But then nothing worthwhile is easily gained.

At the very least the solution will require qualified math teachers in all math classrooms, an engaging curriculum that has clear relevance to the multitude of pathways that students might pursue, including trades and business as well as science, and clear statements from the tertiary sector detailing the essential prerequisites that students require for their programs.

One goal might be to raise the level of math skills for all students. Another might be that students choose to study the math that they enjoy and is appropriate to their future careers.

Now I would like to see that.

Deborah King is Senior lecturer in Mathematics at University of Melbourne.This story is published courtesy of The Conversation(under Creative Commons-Attribution/No derivatives).