Calls for minister to 'urgently address' claims experts' views ignored in development of maths curriculum 

It comes after resignation of two experts involved with the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment's redevelopment of the subject

Dr Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin, associate professor of mathematics education at Dublin City University, said she resigned from the NCCA's Mathematics Development Group last June, describing the draft curricula currently out for review as 'littered with mathematical errors and inaccuracies'. File picture: Naoise Culhane

The education minister is facing calls to address claims experts’ views were ignored during the process to develop the new Leaving Cert maths curriculum. 

Two expert members of the group tasked with the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA)'s redevelopment of the subject
have resigned, citing serious concerns with the process. 

Dr Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin, associate professor of mathematics education at Dublin City University (DCU), said she resigned from the NCCA's Mathematics Development Group last June, describing the draft curricula currently out for review as "littered with mathematical errors and inaccuracies”.

She said the curricula produced to date and which are currently out for review “are not mathematically coherent in their structure”.

In January, Professor Pauline Mellon, emeritus professor of mathematics at the School of Mathematics and Statistics at University College Dublin (UCD), also resigned from the group, citing concerns. 

Similar frustrations have also been experienced by members of the committee previously tasked with redeveloping the science syllabus.

TD Jen Cummins, education spokesperson for the Social Democrats, called on education minister Hildegarde Naughton to "urgently address" the claims experts' views were ignored by the NCCA during the development of the new curriculum. 

Mathematics is far too important for there to be any question over the integrity of the process used to determine how it is taught in our schools.

"Concerns about the reform process cannot be brushed aside. The minister must establish exactly what happened during this process; what recommendations or concerns were raised by the maths experts; how the NCCA responded to them; and whether substantive decisions had already been made before the consultation process was completed." 

Labour education spokesperson Eoghan Kenny said the concerns raised were "extremely serious".

"The minister should now seek an urgent report from the NCCA setting out how the concerns raised by both experts were dealt with, what mechanisms exist for resolving disagreements over subject content, and how subject-matter expertise is represented throughout the curriculum redevelopment process."

In a letter to the NCCA, seen by the Irish Examiner, Professor Mellon said content on the proposed higher-level curriculum had “been significantly hollowed out as so much material has been cut”.

This included "more or less" all of geometry, much of trigonometry, mathematical induction, financial mathematics, and complex numbers. Other material has been "diluted", while at the same time "essentially nothing new has been added", she wrote. 

She added: “The proposed draft HL curriculum is now merely an extended ordinary level curriculum. To use the principle of the Hippocratic Oath, ‘Do no harm’, this draft curriculum should not be progressed.

“If it, or a variant of it, is adopted, it will significantly harm mathematics education and disadvantage the tens of thousands of students who will take it each year.”

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She added there were "almost no subject specialists" in the group. 

A spokesperson for the NCCA said the group "continued its work and significant further development has taken place in shaping the draft specification that is now the subject of a national public consultation". 

A spokesperson for the Department of Education said: "These are only draft specifications — they have not been finalised.

"Over the next three months, the NCCA is inviting feedback from teachers, school leaders, students, parents, people working in further and higher education, employers, mathematicians and other stakeholders."