Article by Andrew Trounson, The Australian, 27 August 2014
FIRST-year university students are at risk of being misled by universities providing only vague information on the level of maths needed to complete courses like engineering and science, potentially putting institutions in breach of standards. A forum of academics teaching first year maths has issued a communiqué calling on education minister Christopher Pyne to initiate an inquiry and calling on Universities Australia to urge its members to review their selection criteria.
…the Higher Education Standards Framework requires universities to “ensure that students have adequate prior knowledge and skills to undertake the course of study successfully.” The forum is questioning whether the information being provided by some universities is adequate.
They complain that increasingly unis are dropping maths prerequisites or explicit requirements and replacing them with vaguer and potentially misleading indications of so-called “assumed knowledge” that aren’t assessed.
