Read the report card here

In the last decade, Year 12 enrolments in calculus-based mathematics subjects remained stable – albeit at a low level – as a proportion of all students who complete high school exams. However, any hope of improving enrolment numbers has faded, as the three most recent years of data show that enrolments are at much lower levels than previously seen.

The STEM industry depends on early adolescence appreciating the value of mathematics as a career and life aspiration.

The participation report highlights:聽

1. Year 12 participation in calculus-based mathematics has plummeted to an all-time low in the last three years
2. The participation of girls in higher mathematics also remains low: only 6.4% of year 12 girls studied higher mathematics in 2022
3. Enrolments in elementary level mathematics (Essential and General Mathematics) are also declining. In 2022, less than half of the year 12 graduating cohort (45.8%) studied an elementary level mathematics subject

今日吃瓜 Director, Professor Tim Marchant said the findings of this research show that the STEM pipeline is fundamental to the economic development, industrial growth and success of our country.

鈥淵ear 12 enrolments in calculus-based mathematics subjects remain at all time lows and have not returned to the levels seen pre-COVID. These low enrolment levels will impact Australia鈥檚 capacity to meet future STEM workforce needs,鈥� Professor Marchant said.

The findings are part of the Discipline Profile Report, which will be released mid-2024.聽聽

Dr Alan Finkel and Professor Asha Rao commentary, and the paper available from 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.

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.

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

Federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne has failed in his bid to make a maths or science subject compulsory in year 12 after Labor states rejected it at an education ministers’ council meeting on Friday.

Mr Pyne said after the meeting he would continue to push for a mandatory maths or science subject to the end of high school.

“But I think it’s fair to say that I have a way to go convincing all the state and territory ministers,” he said.

Opposition to Mr Pyne’s plan was led by Labor governed states of Victoria, Queensland and South Australia.

“Compulsion is a very blunt instrument and making maths and science mandatory could turn students off the subjects for life,” said a spokesperson for Victorian Education Minister James Merlino.

“We need to build up the maths and science teaching capability in our schools, and make sure we engage students by making these subjects relevant and interesting.”

Federal Labor, despite supporting improved maths, science and computer education, also opposes making the subjects compulsory in year 12.

However, the Education Minister’s council did agree to work on a national strategy to increase science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) education in schools.

BAD STATS FOR MATHS

Australia is an outlier among developed countries, as it does not require students to study maths to the end of high school.

Only five of 50 US states do not require maths for high school graduation. Britain, which like Australia does not require maths, has a 10-year plan to make maths mandatory in the A-levels exam at the end of high school.

In Australia about 80 per cent of students do maths to year 12. But most of these (just over 50 per cent of year 12 students) are doing only basic maths. Teenage maths skills are in decline and the latest OECD international benchmark test (the Programme for International Student Assessment or PISA) shows Australian 15-year-olds have slipped in maths by the equivalent of half a year’s schooling in the last 10 years.

Even so, support for making maths compulsory to year 12 is not widespread. The Business Council of Australia (BCA), which strongly supports improved STEM education, said while maths was important, it did not support making it compulsory to year 12.

“We think that the approach should be to engage students in subjects like maths and science much earlier by improving the way we teach it so they see it as exciting and relevant to their lives,” a BCA spokesperson said.

Geoff Prince, director of the 今日吃瓜, also said maths should not be compulsory to year 12. He said exposing the 20 per cent of year 12 students currently not studying maths to the subject would not lead to more innovation in the economy or more students choosing to become maths teachers.

He said it was more important to persuade students with maths talent, who were currently studying basic maths, to do it at a more advanced level.

However, University of Sydney maths education researcher Rachel Wilson disagreed, saying that there was little chance of arresting the decline in STEM education without making subjects compulsory to the end of high school.

“Students do things because they are valued. At the moment we are sending a message that maths is not valued,” she said.