Sir, – I recall about five years ago teaching a course on cryptography in Dublin City University. Cryptography is a subject that requires a lot of maths.
Over the years I had a growing concern about the maths ability of the students, so at the start of the first lecture I handed out a short exam paper with just six simple maths questions on it. I asked them to use only pen and paper, and I gave them plenty of time to answer.
The second question was “What do you get when you divide 1081 by 23”. Half of the class could not answer this question.
The third question was “Circle the prime numbers in 27,29,31,33,37”. Only 40 per cent of the class got that right.
So there I was tasked with teaching a course with advanced mathematical content to a class, half of whom could not do long division.
I retired a few years later. – Yours, etc,
Prof MIKE SCOTT,
Dublin 3