Stephen Matchett, Campus Morning Mail, 12 June 2014
There is nothing new in this morning’s bad news from the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute that maths is taught to 40 per cent of junior high school students by somebody other than a maths-qualified teacher. A similar figure based on ACER research was around last year. But the push from Professor Geoff Prince to increase the number of qualified maths teachers and women studying the discipline does not have to be new to be important – and worth acting on. Professor Prince “calls on the Australian governments to immediately address the urgent shortage of qualified maths teachers. Measures include upgrading existing qualifications for ‘out-of-field’ maths teachers and engaging with school and undergraduate students to become qualified maths teachers.” Doing so will take a national approach, “because teachers are employed by so many public and private jurisdiction,” Professor Prince adds. Sound like a job for anybody in particular? Try Chris Pyne. Yes, he already has a review of the national curriculum underway but this is a practical problem that does not need an ideological impetus to address.
Reproduced from the Campus Morning Mail website.
