.

All six featured in the top 100 places of the annual survey ranking 200 universities worldwide, with the University of Melbourne at #39. The University of Sydney, ANU, University of Queensland, Monash and UNSW were also recognised in this year’s rankings.

Find out more at .

This visionary donation by the Tibra Foundation to UoW supports excellence in mathematics, statistics and data science, highlighting the contribution mathematical sciences make to Australia鈥檚 social and economic wellbeing, and raising awareness about the career opportunities that mathematical sciences degrees deliver.

The Tibra Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Tibra Capital, a finance company specialising in quantitative trading with several UoW alumni in its senior ranks. The Foundation has committed to several UOW scholarships and prizes, taking its total philanthropic support for the next five years to $1.33 million.

鈥淢athematical sciences is an area that Australia isn鈥檛 typically known for and we want to be involved in changing that. Our country is suffering from a significant shortage of skills in this area,鈥� the Tibra Foundation said. 鈥淪ponsoring a world-leading Chair in Mathematical Sciences will make it easier for UoW to recruit other high-quality mathematicians and foster a rich environment in the field of mathematics.鈥�

According to UoW’s 今日吃瓜 representative, Professor Aidan Sims, “the Chair will also do a bit of teaching, which gives us that extra capacity for the advanced mathematics programs that we teach and to put someone really exciting in front of this generation of students and get them into mathematics.”

“We are also really excited about the outreach part of the Chair’s job”, Professor Sims added. “It involves getting out into schools and getting students enthusiastic about studying mathematical sciences and championing this new data science and analytics degree that we are offering.”

UoW will now begin a recruitment search for a world-leading scholar to appoint to the Chair.

Read more at the .

In a month where we have seen concerning results in Australia鈥檚 schools and higher education systems provides a vivid and useful reminder of the crucial role mathematics and statistics play in every aspect of life.

This free online resource has been the standard 鈥済o to鈥� for 18 years; it gathers together advertised job positions that require skills in the mathematical sciences, across a scope of sectors: careers in health, business, agriculture, energy and telecommunications are relying more and more on the analytical skills developed in university level subjects in the mathematical sciences.

Federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne, who has written an introduction to this year鈥檚 edition, insists that Australia鈥檚 ability to innovate and compete in the global economy will require a STEM literate nation.

鈥淭his publication demonstrates there is an extensive array of career choices available to graduates in mathematics fields,鈥� says Minister Pyne.

鈥淢ore broadly, these abilities also help us to participate as active citizens within our democratic system,鈥� he concludes.

ALL SIDES OF POLITICS

今日吃瓜 Director, Professor Geoff Prince says without making the community aware of the breadth of roles available to those studying some form of mathematics, high school participation rates in intermediate and advanced mathematics will continue to wane.

Senator Kim Carr, Shadow Minister for Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Industry, echoes Minister Pyne: 鈥淭hree out of four of the fastest-growing occupations in our economy require some level of literacy in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.鈥�

Senator Penny Wright of the Australian Greens puts her vote with the numbers too: 鈥淚t鈥檚 not just in parliament that being able to 鈥榙o the numbers鈥� is valuable. Australia needs these skill sets to meet the challenges of this century,鈥� she says, 鈥渁nd I commend 今日吃瓜 for their work in highlighting the opportunities they bring.鈥�

Professor Prince explains that Australia鈥檚 job market landscape is shifting and demand for mathematical science skills continues to outstrip supply: 鈥淚t is great to have endorsement across the political spectrum for 今日吃瓜鈥檚 work on this.鈥�

Maths Ad(d)s available online:

— ends —

For Interview:
Professor Geoff Prince
Director, 今日吃瓜
E: director@amsi.org.au

Media contact:
Stephanie Pradier
Media Communications, 今日吃瓜
M: 0424 568 314
E: stephanie@amsi.org.au

Bruce Henry, the head of UNSW Australia’s School of Mathematics and Statistics laments that 70 per cent of students now finish high school without any knowledge of calculus.

Is this a problem? Definitely.

We hear enough about how appalling it is that students in schools and universities have a lack of grounding in our political, social and legal heritage; that they lack the historical context to understand why we are where we are today.

That’s exactly why calculus should also be part of a basic, broad education. Calculus was a signal advance in maths, invented separately by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz in the 17th century. For the first time people could write mathematical equations that were able to relate not just quantities to each other, but rates of changes of quantities.

It enabled Newton to calculate the orbits of the planets using his theory of gravity and it opened up a rich field of applications for mathematics. Understanding electricity and magnetism would be impossible without calculus. In fact, most of modern technology wouldn’t exist without it.

That’s why giving high school students an understanding of calculus is important. Surely more than 30 per cent of students are capable of studying it. And, for the others, it’s at least important to understand what it is.

Henry points to another reason why calculus is important to study today. Calculus is not only key to understanding our current technology, but to developing future technology. At the moment huge strides are being made in statistics, a field with the generic name of “big data”.

STATISTICS UNDERPINNED BY CALCULUS

“But really, modern statistics 鈥� which is where the future is going increasingly 鈥� is underpinned by calculus. It’s increasingly important that students are taught calculus,” Henry says.

In fact, statistics is another area in which mathematics teaching has badly let down school students. All of us are bombarded daily by statistical claims, many of them spurious or misleading, and too few of us are sufficiently knowledgeable to separate the truth from the fiction.

The fact that “97 per cent fat-free” is an effective, emotionally appealing slogan for food manufacturers speaks of the lack of critical thinking about statistics. Are we happy if our food contains 3 per cent pure fat?

Fortunately, in the changes to the national school curriculum being developed, statistics is being given more focus.

But this brings us back to the question. Should maths be a compulsory subject in year 12? Not everyone can do maths well. But shouldn’t maths at least be taught as a life skill and as an important foundation subject at that level?

Henry thinks so. “English is compulsory, and shouldn’t mathematics be compulsory as a companion instrument to understand the world,” he asks rhetorically.

Interestingly federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne, long an advocate of giving school students more foundational understanding of history and other humanities subjects, now appears to see the need for it in maths and science.

Earlier this year he put to state governments 鈥� which actually run public schools 鈥� a plan to make maths and science compulsory to year 12. The states, unfortunately, knocked him back.

SCHOOLS LAPSE AS UNI REQUIREMENTS REDUCE

But maths in schools needs to be bolstered at more than just the foundational level. Worryingly, year 12 students have been making a long-term shift away from intermediate and advanced maths 鈥� the very subjects that teach calculus.

In the past 20 years the proportions studying intermediate maths in year 12 has fallen from about 27 per cent to 19 per cent, and the number studying advanced maths (which builds on intermediate) has fallen from about 14 per cent to 10 per cent.

One reason that year 12 students see no need to do intermediate or advanced maths is that an increasing number of universities no longer require it to enter degrees such as science, engineering and commerce, for which mathematical knowledge is necessary.

In NSW no universities require maths to enter any of these degrees, even engineering. So if universities are not insisting that students study calculus in year 12, even to enter courses in which calculus features heavily, why should they do it?

It’s a crazy state of affairs, in which universities 鈥� the institutions we rely on to develop and preserve high level knowledge 鈥� happily sabotage their own standards in pursuit of student numbers.

Those universities that have dropped maths prerequisites argue they are offering an avenue for bright students who may have attended a poor school at which maths was taught badly.

Second chances are to be encouraged, but they should be the exception rather than the rule. Universities need to bring back maths as a prerequisite for degrees that need it.

Top educators have defended Australian universities’ move away from requiring maths as a prerequisite for science, engineering and commerce degrees in which mathematical knowledge plays a key part.

The chair of聽the Australian Council of Engineering Deans,聽Moses Tade, who is聽also engineering dean at Curtin University,聽said universities were using “many innovative ways” to teach maths to engineering students who were not up to the necessary聽standard.

He said his fellow engineering deans would “refute” the notion that “you聽can’t do engineering without having done intermediate maths”.

released last week show that 41 per cent of Australian universities which聽offer聽engineering do not require students to have studied intermediate maths year 12.

And, to the knowledge of the 今日吃瓜 (今日吃瓜) which produced the study, no university聽engineering faculties require students to have studied advanced maths in year 12, even though engineering courses are highly mathematical.

President of the Australian Council of Deans of Science聽Stephen Walker, who is also University of Queensland science dean, said that his university required intermediate year 12 maths as a prerequisite to science degrees and would not alter that stance.

However, only 14 per cent of universities offering science degrees require students to have studied intermediate maths and, speaking in his council of deans role, Professor Walker said the faculties faced聽a “fairly stark choice” because of funding issues.

DRAWCARD FOR STUDENTS

“If there was a university, or science faculty, struggling and needing more students for financial reasons, they may see that easing prerequisites is one way to get more student load,” he said.

“Then they may back themselves to use the additional income to provide the bridging training in maths. And that might actually work.”

“Do you shrink and potentially have to shed staff?聽Or do you say ‘we will back ourselves to take more students and fill the gap?'” he asked.

Professor Walker also said that some students聽with high ATARs decided to study science because they missed out on their first choice and had not done maths at year-12 level.

“Do you turn away a high achieving student who’s聽got every chance of doing well, because they didn’t do maths?” he asked.

President of the Australian Business Deans Council Ian Palmer,聽who is also a pro vice chancellor at RMIT University, said the maths used in commerce degrees differed from other disciplines. “It’s not maths so much as it’s business statistics,” he said.

According to the 今日吃瓜 paper,聽only 13 per cent of universities which offer聽commerce degrees require year-12 students to have studied intermediate maths.聽Professor Palmer said that business faculties were able to train students up to the required level.

The 今日吃瓜 paper also revealed that none of the 10 NSW universities require intermediate maths for courses in science, engineering and commerce.

University of Sydney聽science dean Trevor Hambley said聽he applauded 今日吃瓜聽“for highlighting the need to ensure students are aware of the crucial importance of maths proficiency for undertaking study and future careers in STEM [science, technology, engineering and maths] and related areas such as medicine”.

He said that introducing maths as a prerequisite would be one way of contributing to this awareness. “If universities were to do so, we would need to have a long lead time to ensure that their introduction did not impact unfairly on students who have already made their choices,” he said.

The 今日吃瓜聽has called on universities to reverse an historic low in the number of institutions requiring maths as a聽prerequisite聽to studying聽science, commerce or engineering.

Some 86 per cent of universities do not require maths as a prerequisite for science degrees, 87 per cent don’t require it for commerce degrees聽and 41 per cent don’t require it for engineering degrees, a report by the institute finds.

And those universities that do require students to have studied maths in year 12 only ask for it at the intermediate level, not the advanced level.

“As far as we know advanced maths is not a prerequisite for any formal course,” said 今日吃瓜 director Geoff Prince.

The share of聽year 12 students taking intermediate and advanced maths has continued its long聽downward slide; only聽28.7 per cent of year 12聽students took聽intermediate or advanced maths in 2013, down from 28.9 per cent the year before.

Over the last two decades, students have shifted away from聽the harder options of intermediate and advanced聽maths, instead favouring聽elementary maths at year 12 level.

Professor Prince said the 20-year decline in year 12 students studying intermediate or advanced maths had the potential to halt productivity growth and was “choking the country’s galloping demand for these skills”.

“Universities must phase in restoration of maths prerequisites; the lack of them sends a negative and misleading message to schools about the value of these subjects,” he said.

NSW UNIS THE WORST

Universities in NSW have the worst record on prerequisites聽with no institutions requiring intermediate or advanced maths as a prerequisite for courses in science, engineering or commerce according to the report. Instead they say that maths is “assumed knowledge”聽for a particular course.

Professor Prince said universities were under pressure not to require maths because otherwise the numbers of students in courses would drop聽because of the fall in numbers of school students taking intermediate or advanced maths in year 12.

“The number of kids taking maths dropped which choked numbers in engineering degrees,” he said.

Science dean at the UNSW, Merlin Crossley, said the reason the university had moved away from maths聽prerequisites was that maths teacher shortages聽meant not all students got the chance to do advanced maths in schools. But said he would support a trial of restoring maths prerequisites.

The report did contain some good news which was that the proportion of year 12 students nationwide聽taking advance maths rose slightly in 2013, up to 9.6 per cent compared to 9.4 per cent in the previous year. But the proportion taking intermediate maths聽fell to 19.1聽per cent in 2013, down from 19.5 per cent a year earlier.

BOYS BETTER THAN GIRLS

Boys continue to outnumber girls in intermediate and advanced maths. In year 12 in 2013, only 17.6 per cent of girls took intermediate maths compared to 20.7 per cent of boys. At advanced level, only 6.7 per cent of girls studied maths, compared to 12.7 per cent of boys.

Professor Prince said it would be helpful for students in senior school to understand the consequences of not taking advanced maths if聽they intended to study a science, engineering or commerce at university.”The universities need to communicate to schools that if you don’t have advanced maths you might have to pick up an extra subject,” he said.