Madam, - Ibec, the Minister for Education, the Royal Irish Academy and The Irish Times (Editorial, August 16th) are all concerned at the high failure rate in ordinary level mathematics in the Leaving Certificate. Of greater concern should be the inability of large numbers of those who have achieved a pass to demonstrate basic competence in mathematics at third level.
Many students achieve a pass grade without gaining any meaningful understanding or basic proficiency in the subject. Increasing numbers are passing at ordinary level simply by rote learning.
Students entering science or engineering courses with a D in ordinary level mathematics frequently encounter significant difficulties with mathematics in the first year of their chosen course. There is also evidence that students with grades as high as a B2 in ordinary level mathematics are "under-prepared" for mathematics at third level. This does not relate to relatively advanced areas such as trigonometry or calculus, but rather to key foundation areas such as fractions, percentages, powers and arithmetic.
So where do we go from here? How do we ensure that a pass in mathematics in the leaving certificate at ordinary level actually means something? In 2004 Prof Robin Smith presented a report to the British government entitled "Making Maths Count". This was the result of a two-year inquiry into maths education for 14- to 19-year-olds. The main conclusion was that there had been a systematic failure "to motivate and explain to students what mathematics is really about and how powerful it is in the world around us". The response to this report was the establishment in 2005 of the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics, with the aim of making available material that explains how mathematics is useful in the world around us.
The first concrete output from this centre is a multimedia package called Mathtutor that is freely accessible at the website www.mathtutor.ac.uk. This bundle of video, text, animations and interactive testing will be of use to many students who are preparing to sit their leaving certificate next year. It will also benefit students entering third-level science and engineering courses next month who may be under-prepared. This package is not a panacea but it is a step in the right direction.
A major step forward in this country would be the establishment of an Irish Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics. Similar centres would also be of use in chemistry, biology, physics - and indeed in most other disciplines.
These would benefit teachers and lecturers as well as students and could greatly ease the difficult transition from second to third level. A result of such an initiative might be that a pass mark in leaving certificate mathematics would indicate that a student was reasonably prepared for a science or engineering course at third level. - Is mise,
Dr PÁDRAIG KIRWAN, Ardkeen Village, Waterford.