Leaving Cert results - Things aren’t adding up with maths

TODAY’S Leaving Certificate results have once again sounded alarm bells, alarm bells that have rung loudly every August for some years now.

They confirmed that far, far too many of our young people leave secondary school without an adequate understanding of mathematics.

This year just over 35,000 students sat ordinary level maths and 4,403 of those failed even this basic test. This failure rate — 12.3% — continues a dismal trend; more and more students are failing rudimentary maths.

There has been a rise in the failure rate in each of the past two years and is the highest rate of E to “no grade” marks awarded in more than five years.

Less than 17% of maths students took the higher level paper, the lowest in at least five years and down from almost 19% in 2005. Conversely, there has been a significant 4% rise in the number of students taking foundation level maths — 5,803 — or nearly one-in-10 of all students taking the subject.

That less than one-in-five students take the higher level course is a startling indictment of our system and a worrying indication of our capacity to service the kind of economy we hope to develop.

The results indicate that far too many of these students are not equipped to play the role they might wish — or we might expect of them — in a knowledge-based economy.

This poor performance has the potential to become a significant hindrance to economic recovery and, in time, growth.

Proficiency in maths is a basic requirement in a modern economy. In reality, excellence is what is required and that is what our international competitors aim to provide. By accepting results like these we are conceding an advantage we once imagined we had over our competitors.

This is the sorry situation despite what many senior academics insist is a continual and damaging dumbing down of the Leaving Cert and fairly predictable exam papers. This process has gone so far that some concerned academics have warned that the international integrity of our second-level exam system may come into question.

There is also the farcical situation where a great number of people who teach maths do not have the relevant qualifications. How can this be? Surely school managers, and if not them, then the Department of Education, insist on a candidate having the relevant qualifications before offering them a teaching post, even a temporary one. This practice has a huge impact on the standard of teaching and the ability of pupils to realise their potential.

The situation is exacerbated by the fashion of imagining that maths is overly difficult and that the effort required to succeed far outweighs the reward. Maths can be challenging but, as in any subject, great progress can be achieved through hard work. This principle was previously acknowledged by awarding double points for maths. Maybe the time has come to consider reintroducing that scheme. Firstly, to promote the subject and, secondly, to encourage those who might not have an affinity with the subject to study it and realise that commitment can often overcome disadvantage.

This problem has been apparent for some time and it must be addressed. An immediate review of the curriculum and an insistence that all teachers teaching maths are qualified to do so are the minimum first steps.