ALL SEVEN universities have now agreed to introduce a system of bonus CAO points for higher-level maths in the Leaving Cert exam. The plan was championed by Minister for Education Mary Coughlan and opposition has crumbled since University College Dublin’s Academic Council agreed to implement it on a trial basis.
It is widely expected that the new system – worth at least 40 additional CAO points to students – will be rolled out from 2012. That said, the university sector, especially academics in UCD, University College Cork and NUI Galway, appear less than fully convinced of its merits.
In signalling their readiness to trial it, the three universities exhorted the Minister to accompany the new measures with a range of other policy initiatives. The bonus points scheme will only work, they say, if it is complemented by more professional development for teachers, more support for second-level teachers, wider access to higher-level maths in more schools and ongoing reform of the maths curriculum.
The universities are correct. Bonus points are no panacea for what has been labelled the “maths crisis” in Irish schools. But they are a welcome start and they are fair to students. A series of studies have confirmed that higher-level maths is, by some measure, the most demanding and time-consuming exam in the Leaving Cert. Students deserve some additional reward for taking it up. And clearly something has to be done to build support for maths. Only 16 per cent of Leaving Cert students take the subject at higher level, an astonishingly low figure and one which compares poorly with trends in Britain, Northern Ireland and elsewhere. The shallow pool of higher-level maths students also reduces the numbers taking science and related disciplines at third level, where grade C or better in higher level maths is a minimum requirement.
The universities are also right when they insist the new system must form part of a wider effort to boost maths in our schools. Ms Coughlan points out that bonus points will run in parallel with the new more “user-friendly” maths curriculum known as Project Maths, due to be implemented from 2012. But the merit of this scheme is open to question (with some claims that it will “dumb down” the subject) and there have been only vague promises of more in-service training for teachers. That said, a bonus points scheme is the only initiative capable of yielding benefits in this area in the short term; it is worth trying on a trial basis.