IPPN

Published: 29 December 2008

Source: Independent

By Fergus Black and Patricia McDonagh

UNIVERSITIES have dismissed proposals to re-introduce bonus points for honours Leaving Certificate maths.

Awarding bonus points for maths would artificially increase the cut-off points levels for science, engineering and technology subjects, the universities have warned.

The proposal would be unlikely to encourage more students to study these programmes and could actually act as a deterrent to students taking up the subject, according to the colleges.

An expert government advisory group has recommended that Leaving Cert students who brave the Higher-Level Maths paper should be rewarded with bonus college points.

The Expert Group on Future Skills Needs said the move was necessary to compensate for the greater effort required for success in Higher-Level Maths which is taken by only 17pc of Leaving Cert students.

Fine Gael Education spokesman Brian Hayes last night insisted bonus points for honours Leaving Cert maths could be made "course specific".

This would mean that a student would only receive the bonus if he or she chose a particular science or technology course at third level.

Fair

This would be "fair" and help the country produce high performing science and technology graduates.

"How can an economy recover and prosper when, in just eight years, there will be a 45pc and 55pc drop in the number of computing and electrical engineering graduates respectively?" Mr Hayes asked.

"Radical educational reforms that safeguard our economy are needed to future-proof our economic success."

But the idea of any kind of bonus scheme has been dismissed by the Irish Universities Association (IUA), the representative body for the seven Irish universities.

In a major response to the proposal, the IUA said it was widely agreed that it was desirable to increase the number of students studying science, engineering and technology (SET) subjects in higher education.

While maths was of fundamental importance to careers in engineering, experimental and numerative disciplines, increasing the numbers of Leaving Cert honours maths students would not by itself lead to a meaningful increase in the numbers of SET students.

According to the IUA, preliminary analysis of last year's figures indicated that more than 70pc of students who accepted a place in a level 8 honours degree programme did not have honours maths.

Of those who did, more than 60pc chose a field of study other than the science, applied science, engineering and technology areas.

"There is therefore, no guarantee that a student who takes honours mathematics will enter into the physical sciences or engineering, even where additional bonus points for mathematics are awarded."

The universities also warned that awarding bonus points only for applicants to SET programmes would artificially increase the cut-off points levels for applicants in these areas without necessarily increasing demand.

They found that the number of students sitting honours maths was strongly conditioned by the number of schools which actually provided the option.

Of the 786 second-level schools recorded for last year's Leaving Cert, honours maths candidates came from 640 of them. This meant that a minimum of 146 schools -- one in five -- did not offer Leaving Cert honours maths.

"The fact that such a large proportion of schools do not appear to teach honours maths immediately and dramatically reduces the options of important numbers of potential SET students," the universities said.

Students

"It should also be noted that awarding bonus points for Leaving Cert honours maths would further disadvantage all students from such schools where this subject is not even an option, placing them at a relative disadvantage in terms of points to students where LC honours maths (and therefore bonus points) were available.

"Increasing the numbers of LC honours maths students would also require increasing the numbers who sit the subject at Junior Cert."

The IUA concluded: "There are major challenges which need to be addressed in the perception and teaching of mathematics in the secondary school system which will not be addressed simply by offering bonus points for LC honours maths."

A spokesman for Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe said providing bonus points could reinforce the perception that maths was a difficult subject.

There was "no evidence" that the courses where bonus points used to be applied -- in the University of Limerick and the Institute of Technology -- fared any better in terms of applicants, he said.

UCD and the University of Limerick were the last universities to offer bonus points for maths, before both phased them out in the late 1990s.

- Fergus Black and Patricia McDonagh