The decline in the number of students planning careers in the physical sciences is undoubtedly worrying. It is (of course) part of the trend of the general decline in third-level student numbers nationally, but now it seems that maths and science in particular are failing to attract people because "modern" students are not disciplined enough to concentrate on these subjects for long periods.
According to leading academics from the institutes of technology, science and maths are being avoided because "they require the ability to pursue a question step by logical step to a successful outcome", and it seems today's students are not keen on "concentrated, continuous and consistent attention".
This may be true (as far as it goes), though one might ask to what extent these findings are scientific: i.e. what measurements were made, samples taken, experiments conducted, what laboratory conditions obtained at the time and what irrefutable proofs were demonstrated.
However, of more concern to some is the implication that those of us who have, career-wise, "gone in for" the liberal arts, the caring professions (including of course the Garda and the Prison Service, as well as our lovely nurses), the ever-expanding arts administration area, the glamorous media field, the even more glittering entertainment area, the vast counselling industry and the thankless task of teaching, are in some way less logical beings than scientists and mathematicians; and that our occupations demand less "concentrated, continuous and consistent attention".
Consider the example of a modern pop star, perhaps one of our handsome young Irish boyband members. Arriving at a concert he is expected to remember, in order, the verses of a number of "pop" songs, deliver them with passion and commitment, gyrate about the stage for perhaps two hours or more, perform a variety of suggestive choreographed routines and all the time keep a venue full of hormonally-aroused teenage girls in a state of high excitement.
Are our technology academics seriously suggesting that such a performance does not demand concentrated, continuous attention and a remarkable degree of discipline, as the very least as much as brewing up, in the laboratory, a simple plastic compound of, say, nitroglycerine and kieselguhr in a three-to-one mix?
The sector has also complained, rather pompously, about the number of students presenting for careers "who clearly have not studied trigonometry, are unable to process the simplest of Intermediate Certificate equations and cannot compute a simple percentage, nor position the decimal point following a division by some power of 10."
The techno-academics appear to be unaware of how things have similarly changed in many areas of study. Professors of poetry in our third-level institutions, for example, are well used to students arriving to their lectures with no idea of the difference between a sonnet and a sestina, or a triolet and a virelay, and who cannot distinguish, even at 30 feet, between a tetrastich and a dipody.
That does not mean many of these eager if somewhat vague young people will not be snapped up after a few years by Bloodaxe, Gallery Press or Faber & Faber, and go on to Heaney-like levels of success.
Similarly, a few simple mistakes in equation-solving, a rather endearing habit of putting the decimal point in the wrong place and a quite understandable confusion over percentages will not necessarily mean that some maths students will fail to eventually secure prestigious financial positions, perhaps even rising to prominence in one of our large banking groups, or at the very least gaining senior treasury positions in overseas subsidiaries. Who is to say?
It may be that science and mathematics are simply not sufficiently "sexy" to attract students any longer. If so, the technology heads must consider how their own rather staid and dull image might be altered.
They might also consider presenting some of the giants of maths and science in a more attractive light. For example, they could do worse than to remind potential students of French mathematician ╔variste Galois, whose life is the subject of Blue Raincoat's play, The Hollow in the Sand, currently running in Sligo's Factory Performance Space until Saturday next.
Galois, who pioneered the modern branch of maths known as group theory, had a life dogged by ill luck: three papers he submitted to the AcadΘmie des Sciences were rejected or lost and he was refused permission to the ╔cole Polytechnique. However, the technology academics might gloss over these unfortunate incidents, and concentrate instead on publicising the poor fellow's republican sympathies, and his romantic death at the early age of 21, following a duel.
bglacken@irish-times.ie