This morning Mary Hanafin has announced that she wants to give bonus points for higher level maths marks used to do engineering, science and technology degrees.
Nice idea, but here’s a question, did we used to do that? Didn’t we only recently abolish that system?
Not to mention the fact that this is blatantly avoiding the problem.
Later in the article Hanafin is quoted as saying that more people need to do foundation maths, because too many people are failing ordinary level maths.
A round of applause for the minister please, for completely and utterly missing the point.
If the grades for the entire spectrum of maths courses are consistently below par, getting everyone to do the easier exam and for that matter questioning if honours maths is too hard is NOT the solution!!
Honours maths need to be challenging – in fact, the entire leaving cert needs to be challenging but that’s an argument for another day. Honours maths is designed to prepare people for use of mathematics at a college level and beyond. The people who are building our bridges need to be able to cope with complex mathematics. Really, they do – this shouldn’t be open to debate or discussion and we really need to boycott any plans to rubber stamp lots of A’s on leaving certs just to get bums on seats in lecture theatres.
Ordinary level maths is called ‘pass maths’ for a reason. I agree that too many people are failing pass maths, but getting them to move down to foundation level really and truly isn’t the problem here. We have a societal predisposition towards fearing mathematics, and the way it is taught does nobody any favours. Pass maths should be about providing people with enough maths to get by in the kind of maths courses that business students are consistently subjected to, without torturing people who simply aren’t mathematically minded. In fact the entire (first and) second (and third?!) level education system needs to pay a bit more attention to the fact that not everybody is good at everything – and adjust itself accordingly. Pass maths should be about passing maths. Simple as.
Finally, foundation level maths should be about providing people who are in neither of the above categories with the basic numerical skills required to get by in life/the outside world. Nothing more, nothing less. 2+2 = 4. Case closed.
Mary Hanafin is a teacher (as in fact are half the TDs in Leinster House).
She should know better - and she should do better.
