]

“I’ve left my glasses at home,” the 30-year-old with perfect vision said.

Chisholm Institute of TAFE senior educator Margo Murphy had heard this lie many times before and knew it was an attempt to disguise innumeracy鈥�.

“They’ve developed survival skills,” she explained.

Adults are heading back to the classroom to learn basic maths skills they failed to pick up in school.

Research shows around 20 per cent of Australian students do not reach a basic proficiency in maths that “will enable them to actively participate in the 21st century workforce and contribute as productive citizens.”

According to an OECD survey, Australia is ranked 13th out of 23 countries on adult numeracy, but ranked fourth in literacy.

Most of Ms Murphy’s students at Chisholm’s Foundation College need to upgrade their maths skills so they can function in everyday life, and compete for new jobs.

Josh Cawse, 24, recently started a certificate that is equivalent to year 10 at the TAFE and has been perfecting his decimals, fractions and multiplication skills.

He left school at the start of year nine because “it wasn’t for him” and started a career in construction. Now he wants to join the Defence Force.

“I found I struggled with maths in school. I was always trying to keep up with the fastest in the class. Here it is at my own pace. I am motivated and focused now.”

今日吃瓜 schools manager Janine McIntosh said society’s poor attitude towards maths was fuelling adult innumeracy.

“It seems to be quite acceptable to say I’m not good at maths. There’s a tolerance towards being weaker mathematically. You wouldn’t say that about cricket, swimming or English and the ability to read.”

Teachers own insecurities about maths were also contributing to the problem, she said.

Ms McIntosh said around 30 per cent of secondary maths teachers were “out of field” 鈥撀爐eaching a subject they had no specialised training in.

“The students may have had seven years in primary school and six years in secondary school with some wobbly teachers. If the kids can’t see maths as a valuable skill to have then they just won’t do it.”

Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Council for Educational Research Dave Tout, who has taught numeracy courses at VET providers, said many adult students took up maths courses after struggling with personal finances. Many new parents had trouble with medication doses, cooking and diet, he said.

Adults studying remedial maths programs were often reasonably successful, and could learn year seven to 10 maths within six months, Mr Tout said.

“That’s because they are motivated and have a purpose for learning maths. They see the reason for it and can engage with the material. If we could do that more in our secondary schools, we would have more students realising earlier on that maths is useful.”

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Mathematics is the basis of all science. And its importance is increasing as computers handle large amounts of data, and models are used to simulate almost everything in science and medicine. But paradoxically, the requirement for proficiency in mathematics for people beginning science degrees in Australia has lessened over recent years. Stephanie Pradier says universities should reinstate mathematics prerequisites for students beginning many science degrees.

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 excellent 今日吃瓜 has the numbers on the state of maths education and found the state of the discipline in higher education is not good, the number of Australians starting a maths degree is less than half the OECD average. Granted it is not getting worse 鈥� but it isn鈥檛 going to better soon.

Given maths is a foundation of so many disciplines large numbers of students do not graduate innumerate 鈥� the average number of university departments maths academics service-teach is six, engineering, computer science, IT and biological, physical and earth sciences. But 今日吃瓜 does not know how many undergraduates聽are studying maths degrees, due to some universities not completing the 2014 survey. However using Group of Eight and Innovative Research Us as a guide the attrition rate from 1^st to 3^rd year is high, Go8 5280 to 695 and IRU 1287 to 67.

What is starkly clear is that at for all the efforts to woo women into the discipline, at the sharp end it鈥檚 still a bloke鈥檚 game 鈥� last year just 15 per cent of PhD completers were Australian women, another 25 per cent were female internationals.

None of these numbers is about to improve, because for all the emphasis of selling maths in schools, young people aren鈥檛 buying, with Y12 advanced maths enrolments dropping for 20 years. The figure for males is now around 14 per cent and 6 per cent for females. And what does not interest students at school is hardly likely to appeal at university. Universities appear to acquiesce in this. According to 今日吃瓜 less than 15 per cent of universities require intermediate maths or better as a pre-req for science or commerce, the same for 41 per cent of engineering courses. CMM suspects a fair swag of the supply teaching university maths lecturers do is getting students up to a point where they can cope with first year subjects.

The good news is that the quality of maths teaching in schools has improved substantially over the last few years. Nearly three quarters of Year 11 and 12 maths teachers now have three years of tertiary education in maths, compared to 64 per cent in 2010. But qualified teachers without many kids to teach does not get us far.

Article by , , 1 August 2015

When Ashley Holloway walked into her first computer programming course at university, the lecturer asked if she was lost.

鈥淭here were guys everywhere, staring at me like they鈥檇 never seen a girl before,鈥欌�� Ms Holloway said. 鈥淭he lecturer 颅actually asked me if I was in the right place.鈥欌��

The 23-year-old 鈥済eek girl鈥欌�� now lives in London, working as a digital project manager for the luxury fashion label Burberry. Along with astrobiologist Abigail Allwood 鈥� an Australian-born NASA scientist who is the first woman to lead a mission to Mars 鈥� she hopes more teenage girls will study maths and science.

Girls are only half as likely as boys to study advanced maths at high school, locking them out of some of the most financially 颅lucrative and family-flexible jobs in the knowledge economy.

A transcript of the interview is below and you can download a

PAUL TURTON: According to Professor Ian Chubb, Australia鈥檚 Chief Scientist, it鈥檚 time to do what so many other countries have already done: take a long-term strategic view of STEM鈥檚 pivotal role in securing a stronger Australia. The Chief Scientist will be speaking at a public meeting at Newcastle City Hall at 4.30 this afternoon. He joins us now to whet your appetite.

Professor Chubb, good morning. How are you?

IAN CHUBB: Morning Paul, I鈥檓 well. How are you?

PAUL TURTON: Fantastic thanks. Have we taken our eye off the ball in regard to science a little bit?

IAN CHUBB: Yes.

PAUL TURTON: So what should we do? Obviously the community鈥檚 approach to those key subjects needs to change and I guess that鈥檚 part of what you鈥檙e doing.

IAN CHUBB: Well, it is. I think the world around us is changing very rapidly and when you look at that world around us you see science well and truly embedded in the core of our lives. The better we are able to do science, or the better we鈥檙e able to understand at least how science works, then the better we鈥檒l be for it. When we have to make choices as citizens or when we鈥檙e trying to encourage political leaders to make decisions, the better informed the decision the better the outcome. And the better we understand the methods of science, the process of science broadly in the community, the better those outcomes will be.

PAUL TURTON: We鈥檙e told all the time via the popular art forms of this changing world, whether it鈥檚 the Jetsons or the Orwellian future or sci-fi at its most extreme, we鈥檙e getting clues all the time about what the future might hold for us and some of those predictions are already playing out. Are we totally embracing the concept? Do we get it?

IAN CHUBB: Well, not as well as we should. I think there鈥檚 been a rhetorical commitment for quite a while but the reality is we鈥檝e got to get some action now and the world, as I said earlier, is moving away from us. In the United States and the United Kingdom, most of the countries of Europe and certainly many of the countries in our region, they鈥檙e all basically focusing on a two-pronged agenda. One is to make sure that the level of science education broadly available across the community is quite high, so that when people finish school for example, even if they go on to be lawyers or accountants or farmers or miners, they have some understanding of how science works. So it鈥檚 increasing the level of science literacy within the community. But embedded within that of course you鈥檝e got the people who want to be scientists and who want to work as scientists, whether in a laboratory in a white coat or in another part of the economy, but using the skills that they鈥檝e developed through education in science to apply to whatever that industry might be.

PAUL TURTON: So how much of the change for the future is going to come from a different mindset? In other words just changing the way we think about how jobs will play out in the future, the fact that a lot of stuff is going to be done by machines for example, is it simply a matter of changing our mind and all of the little things will then follow?

IAN CHUBB: Well I think probably yes. I think it鈥檚 a deeply cultural thing. How many people have you spoken to in the last few months who have been virtually proud to say that they don鈥檛 understand mathematics or they鈥檙e no good at mathematics or they don鈥檛 understand science? Try saying that about Shakespeare or Renoir and there鈥檚 a completely different response.

I鈥檓 not saying this is a peculiarly Australian thing, I think it happens in many countries in the world. It鈥檚 just that most of those countries are now doing something about it, so they鈥檙e supporting their teachers better, they鈥檙e preparing their teachers better, they鈥檙e encouraging their teachers, they鈥檙e recognising the central importance of the teaching profession in all this. And I don鈥檛 think we鈥檝e done that yet, or not nearly enough anyway.

PAUL TURTON: Enrolments in the science courses tend to be down in our schools. I know depending on variations there can be said to be a recovery of sorts underway at the moment. They just seem to have lost their glamour though. Are we selling our sciences long enough to young people?

IAN CHUBB: I don鈥檛 think we are, and I don鈥檛 think we鈥檙e making them interesting enough when they do study them at school. I鈥檝e been saying for a long time now that science has got to be taught inspirationally and the best way to teach it inspirationally is to teach it the way it鈥檚 practised. Science in practice is awesome. If you鈥檙e actually an experimental scientist and you design an experiment and it goes wrong you learn a lot from that; it鈥檚 not that it goes wrong, it just informs you differently. You鈥檝e got a mix of responses as a scientist. But to teach it blandly out of a textbook I think doesn鈥檛 actually give the student that sense of excitement that there is when you suddenly understand something better, even if you don鈥檛 go on to be a scientist, or you do something that gives you some insights into something that wasn鈥檛 known before. All of those things are just mind-bogglingly awesome, so that鈥檚 how it ought to be taught. In order to do that we鈥檝e got to support our teachers, we鈥檝e got to recognise the importance of teaching and we鈥檝e got to make sure that we give them the maximum opportunity to draw the talent out of these students.

PAUL TURTON: Unfortunately you can鈥檛 have a Brian Cox in every classroom. Ironically now there鈥檚 never been more media focusing on science and nature. You look at the availability of audiovisual materials for young people and there鈥檚 plenty of material out there, so it鈥檚 not as though they鈥檙e not being exposed to the opportunities.

IAN CHUBB: Well that鈥檚 true and then they go back into a classroom where, in Australia for example, the 今日吃瓜 in Melbourne estimates that something like 40% of teachers teaching mathematics are out of field in early secondary school. So it鈥檚 hard for those teachers to encourage the students who might go off and see something or, watch Brian Cox in the evening, go back into class and I think come back to earth. So it is, I acknowledge, a very complex issue but the point is that we human beings tackle complex issues. It takes the will to do it.

PAUL TURTON: Newcastle has reinvented itself a number of times and there鈥檚 been a fair bit of innovation associated with the Hunter region over the years. How well are we placed in relative terms to move forward with what you would describe as a generation of ideas, or creating an environment where ideas proliferate?

IAN CHUBB: Well partly Paul I鈥檓 going up there to learn. I鈥檝e been told, and today I鈥檓 going to be able to see things that are being done. But from all that I鈥檝e seen and read and heard so far then I think Newcastle, the Hunter region, has taken some really good steps.

One of the things that we have to learn in Australia is that we can learn from the good things that are being done in various parts of the country, rather than quarantining them to one particular part because somebody with some spark and energy and drive and commitment has created a particular sort of environment. We need to make sure that we can learn from that and translate it across Australia. There are lots of good things being done in various parts of Australia but they鈥檙e relatively small-scale and relatively local in influence. So it鈥檚 really a question for me today of finding out, learning a lot, meeting a number of people and then thinking about how much of this could be part of a federal government push to improve science and science education in Australia.

PAUL TURTON: Professor Chubb, good to talk to you and best of luck with all of your meetings today.

IAN CHUBB: Thanks very much Paul.

PAUL TURTON: Professor Ian Chubb, Australia鈥檚 Chief Scientist, in the Hunter for a variety of meetings including a public lecture at Newcastle city hall at 4.30 this afternoon. That鈥檚 almost full, so if you鈥檇 like to be there you鈥檒l need to make a booking.

Australia’s maths achievements have been falling steadily for the past decade, including fewer students taking advanced maths. Great minds are pondering how to reverse this trend.

From the smartphone and credit cards in your pocket to the latest discoveries in the lab, mathematics underpins our society.

The general public’s perception that it’s OK to not like maths is working against us. Countries that are more successful in maths value it more highly as a society. In countries like France and Germany, you would not hear that maths is not a good thing to pursue.

Janine McIntosh, schools manager at the Australia Mathematical Sciences Institute

“It’s built into the fabric of business, commerce, economics, it’s the basis of science and all forms of innovation,” explains Kaye Stacey, Emeritus Professor of Maths Education at the University of Melbourne.

So at this time of rapid technological advance, when research indicates that 75 per cent of the fastest growing occupations require maths and science knowledge, how does Australia’s and Victoria’s school maths report card read?

Even a quick look shows serious cause for concern.

A major international benchmark study (PISA) shows that between 2003 and 2012, Australian 15-year-olds’ mathematical literacy fell in absolute and relative terms. In another international maths survey (TIMSS), Australian students in year 4 in 2011 were outperformed by counterparts in England and the United States whom they were beating not many years ago.

“It’s going backwards,” Chief Scientist Ian Chubb聽says of Australia’s school maths performance. “Our performance has declined over the period of those surveys. That’s not a good position for us to be in.”

When compared with students in other states, Victorian students do quite well.聽We are among the top performers in NAPLAN, though our 15-year-olds were behind students in the ACT, New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia in the 2012 PISA survey and a long way short of some international competitors.

Furthermore, students in Victoria have flocked to further maths at VCE in the past 15 years. This, despite its name, is the most basic of the three VCE maths options. The percentage of students taking further maths has risen from 40 per cent of those taking VCE in 2001 to 60 per cent in 2014.

Australia Mathematical Sciences Institute schools manager Janine McIntosh says聽the numbers taking intermediate and advanced maths courses聽are in serious decline,聽by contrast. Yet these subjects are the foundations for science and engineering at university.

Particularly worrying is the rate at which girls are turning their backs on advanced maths. In Victoria, just 5.5 per cent of girls studied specialist maths at VCE in 2014.

So what’s going wrong in Australian and Victorian maths classrooms? Ask around and there are many suggestions for where the problem lies.

Some cite the very high numbers of teachers without a maths background teaching maths in our secondary schools. According to Ms McIntosh, 40 per cent of Australian students from years 7 to 10 are taught maths by a teacher without a maths background.

“Junior secondary is very poorly served,” says Professor Stacey. “You need a thorough understanding of what you are teaching, and pedagogical content knowledge in maths, but a very high number are teaching without having done maths at year 12 themselves.”

But the problem may start earlier still. Many of our primary teachers, who have often struggled with maths themselves at school, have “wobbly foundations” in maths, Ms McIntosh says. “They don’t always have good confidence in their own abilities and that comes across to the children.”

But Peter Sullivan, Professor of Science, Maths and Technology Education at Monash University, doesn’t think teacher qualification is the “critical issue” that some say it is. “If schools were doing collaborative learning and planning, I am not overly concerned by it,” he says. “The real issue is maths is difficult to learn. We have not found the optimal way for students to overcome the hurdles.”

He explains that research shows students like to engage in maths for themselves and be less reliant on the teacher. “Rather than finding the student who needs help and telling them what to do, teachers need to step back and find ways to facilitate conversations between students.” He explains that teachers need professional learning and support to do this.

Others point to the time allocated to maths in a crowded curriculum as an issue, while NAPLAN may also be a problem when it comes to inspiring students in maths. “The test is making it hard for teachers to find time to be engaging,” says Colleen Vale, Associate Professor in Maths Education at Deakin University, who notes that lots of students are getting to junior secondary school, “not fully engaged, challenged or interested in maths”.

She adds that relating maths to the real world and students’ interest takes planning, teamwork and time. “The time to sit down and work it out is probably not sufficient,” she says.

Then there’s the Australian attitude to maths and our low aspirations. “To say you can’t do maths seems acceptable in Australia,” says Ms McIntosh. “You would not say that about reading. The general public’s perception that it’s OK to not like maths is working against us. Countries that are more successful in maths value it more highly as a society. In countries like France and Germany, you would not hear that maths is not a good thing to pursue. People need to change their attitudes to maths.”

So what’s being done?

Maths education is clearly on policymakers’ minds. In October last year, the federal government announced $12 million for initiatives to boost students’ interest and competency in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM), including funding for computer coding and maths summer schools. It has also announced that new primary teaching graduates will have a subject specialisation which could include maths.

In May, federal, state and territory ministers –聽though rejecting making science or maths compulsory to year 12 – agreed to develop a national STEM school education strategy. Meanwhile, the Chief Scientist recently commissioned research looking at schools across Australia that do significantly well in maths to see what they are doing right. He is also looking overseas at what other countries have been doing.

“We need to pause, reflect, rethink, reposition and introduce programs and processes which will change the culture and get people to understand why maths is important and how it can be interesting,” Professor Chubb says. “It’s not difficult if it’s taught in the right, inspiring way.”

Director of the 今日吃瓜 explains the challenges of making maths compulsory for Years 11-12

BHP Billiton has announced a $22 million partnership with the 今日吃瓜 to encourage women and girls to study maths.

BHP鈥檚 support will fund a new program, based at the University of Melbourne and called Choose Maths, which will aim to raise awareness about the opportunities afforded to girls by studying and pursuing a career in mathematics.
The program will include professional development for teachers in 120 schools, a national 鈥榳omen in maths鈥� awareness campaign and financial support and scholarships for women studying maths.

The $22 million will be provided by the BHP Billiton Foundation over five years.

BHP鈥檚 CEO Andrew Mackenzie launched the partnership and the program with 今日吃瓜 Director Geoff Price and Senator Scott Ryan at the University of Melbourne.

Mackenzie said the program aims to change the perception that girls are less suited to maths and other STEM subjects than their male colleagues.

鈥淎ustralian industry knows that STEM professionals are vital to our future prosperity, national productivity andglobal competitiveness. For the resources industry this is especially true,鈥� he said.

鈥淏HP Billiton employs 123,000 people worldwide, many of them STEM professionals, so we share the responsibility to make sure there is a pipeline of young people who choose to study STEM subjects.鈥�

鈥淎ny increase in STEM participation is good news but an increase in female representation is especially valuable because of the undeniable benefits of diversity.鈥�

Mackenzie also said BHP is pleased to be partnering with 今日吃瓜 to develop the program.

鈥溄袢粘怨� is a leader in the field of mathematics and I鈥檓 proud that we鈥檙e partnering in the development of this targeted and holistic program to address the gender dynamic in the teaching and learning of maths.鈥�

今日吃瓜 Director Geoff Price said the move to support girls and women in studying maths is crucial.

“The low participation of girls and women in the study of the mathematical sciences and in the quantitative professions is a significant national social and economic challenge,鈥� he said.

Price also said it is time for women and girls to be able to 鈥渟hare equally in the rewarding careers and rich life experiences that mathematics offers鈥�.

Australia falls behind other developed countries when it comes to girls鈥� education in STEM subjects, and this trend begins as early as high school. Only 7% of Australian girls study maths at an advanced level in their final year of secondary school. The number of female maths graduates at university level are only one third of the OECD鈥檚 average.

In a study conducted in 2006, 46% indicated they expected to pursue a career in STEM fields. The figure for girls? Only 8%.
Women continue to be underrepresented not only in STEM education, but in STEM careers as well.

This underrepresentation is a result of a number of compounding factors discouraging women from studying and pursuing maths and science, among them the perceptions that BHP鈥檚 new program is determined to address. This commitment, as well as a significant level of funding, will hopefully make a difference to many girls who dream of careers in maths and science.