The article features commentary by 今日吃瓜 Director, Professor Tim Marchant, who聽said the lack of supply of maths teachers in Australia was a 鈥渟ignificant challenge鈥�.

鈥淎ll the states and territories and the federal government really need to work together to encourage more graduates into the teaching profession to teach mathematics,鈥� Prof Marchant said.

鈥淭he percentage of out-of-field teachers is much higher in聽Australia than other countries and that is a challenge as聽well in where we need to support the teaching profession to build up their qualifications to teach mathematics.鈥�

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Digital Reporter Antonia O’Flaherty, reports:

“Almost half of Australian school principals report teacher shortages, with more than half of those managing schools in remote locations and three-quarters in very remote areas, according to data from the Australian Education Union (AEU).

Key points:

• Data from a union survey shows聽47 per cent of school principals have experienced聽teacher shortages聽in 2020
• More than 70 of the schools surveyed employ science and maths聽teachers not fully qualified in those subjects
• Nationally, teachers say reducing the workload would help retain the workforce

It comes after years of Australia’s declining mathematics performance in international benchmark tests such as the聽Program for International Student聽Assessment (PISA).

今日吃瓜 (今日吃瓜) Director Tim Marchant said the declining mathematics performance was a complicated, multi-faceted problem.

Professor Marchant said it was partly a problem of the way society valued mathematics and its career paths as well as students being taught by out-of-field teachers.

“The number of math teachers is not high enough. The supply of teachers is challenging, so there’s a broad set of issues affecting our PISA results,” he said.

Read more on ABC .

“Australia has a maths problem in its schools. The performance of the country鈥檚 students has steadily declined since global maths literacy tests began almost 20 years ago. By 2018, Australian 15-year-olds were a year behind where the same age group was in 2003, and three years behind those in the top-performing country, Singapore, when tested on how they apply the maths skills they鈥檝e learnt. Amid the hand-wringing that followed the latest results (in late 2019), education ministers pointed to the revision of the national maths curriculum as their solution.

But curriculum is just one piece of the puzzle. Australia has a chronic shortage of maths teachers; one in four year eight students is taught by someone who was not trained in the subject, compared with one in 10 internationally, and the least experienced teachers tend to end up in the schools where expertise is most needed.”

Jordan also refers to the joint statement issued by maths organisations including AAMT and 今日吃瓜, calling for problem-solving to be central to how maths is taught.

Read more on SMH .

Leading up to the release of the draft curriculum, and following a leak of some draft documents, the Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers, the 今日吃瓜, the Australian Academy of Science, and the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia 颅issued a public statement calling for problem-solving to be central to how maths is taught. According to the group, teaching maths content was no longer sufficient.

Read more on The Australian .

The analysis of Australia鈥檚 participation in the 2019 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 鈥� an international assessment 鈥� was released today by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER).

今日吃瓜 (今日吃瓜) analysis also warns that 76% of students will be taught by an out-of-field maths teacher at least once, and 35% of students twice, in the first four years of high school.

Read more on .

At the end of this month, proposed revisions to the Australian maths curriculum will be released for public consultation. The joint statement highlights the importance of an education system that helps deliver students who are adaptable, resilient, responsive to challenges and able to handle unfamiliar situations.

It is no longer enough to just have knowledge. Students must have the skills – problem-solving, mathematising, hypothesising and modelilng – to take that knowledge and apply it to solve unknown problems.

Read more about fostering self-confidence in the maths classroom at .