For the second time in a matter of months, Minister for Education and Science Mary Hanafin has floated the idea of bonus CAO points for Leaving Cert students taking higher level maths. The Hanafin plan would see extra points awarded to students taking honours maths provided they proceed to take science, engineering and technology courses at third level. The initiative is the latest attempt to arrest the "crisis" in maths and science in second and third-level education. Numbers taking higher level maths have continued to fall. Last year, only about 7,000 students gained Grade C3 or higher in the paper, the minimum entry requirement for most third-level courses in science, engineering and related areas.
In practice, this means that only a small minority of the 50,000-plus Leaving Cert students are eligible to pursue science and related areas at third level, despite lofty rhetoric about the importance of the so-called "Knowledge Economy". And CAO trends show a continuing decline in student interest in these areas. Teaching, medicine and business are booming as career choices but fewer students are opting for science and related areas. This could have serious implications for the economy as a declining pool of graduates in these disciplines damages the State's ability to attract inward investment.
But are bonus points the answer? Some students might opt to take maths in order to secure additional points. However, there are reasons to be sceptical. For one, it is hard to see how bonus points would act as a real incentive given that CAO points are already at historically low levels for many science-related courses. Few prospective science students are scrambling around for additional points after the Leaving Cert. At UCD, for example, the points requirements for science is just over 300 points, below the threshold for an arts degree. Across the third-level sector, colleges are struggling to fill courses in many engineering and computer courses where points have already tumbled to low levels.
That said, any move which attracts more students to higher level maths is worthy of consideration. And it would be good to see university presidents teasing out the merits of any such incentive scheme and becoming more proactive on this issue.
Ms Hanafin's parallel initiative to revise the maths course at Leaving Cert and to deliver a more practical, user-friendly curriculum, could also be part of the answer. Students need to be excited and animated by maths and by maths teachers. Ideally, they should be drawn to the subject because of its intrinsic excitement, not because of the lure of bonus points.