Maths Plan Just Won't Add Up, Say Academics
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday May 5, 1993
More than 200 maths academics have signed a petition criticising a national mathematics statement which will influence the writing of school mathematics curriculums across Australia.
The academics say the National Mathematics Profile is flawed and gives an unbalanced view of the skills students need.
The petition rejecting the profile will be sent to the NSW Minister for Education, Mrs Chadwick, and other education ministers across Australia.
A meeting in July of the education ministers will ratify all the national profiles, which will then become benchmarks of desirable progress for school students.
The profiles, which will cover eight areas of learning, will set standards for school students across Australia. The relevant mathematics profile, for example, will state that 14-year-old students should have certain skills -such as an understanding of logarithms.
The academics' petition asks ministers to delay implementing the maths profile pending a review by an independent committee.
The head of the school of mathematics at the University of NSW, Professor Ian Sloan, criticised the mathematics profile.
"NSW is way ahead in its teaching of mathematics," he said.
"The academic levels are higher, but also there is a very good spread of subjects offered here at the high school level."
The profile would bring maths curriculums into line across the country, to the detriment of NSW, he said.
The head of the school of mathematics at Melbourne University, and writer of the petition, Professor Tony Guttmann, said the profile was flawed and that those who prepared it had "resisted any attempt at consultation by maths professionals".
He said mathematics organisations which had been denied involvement in the profile included the Australian Mathematical Society, the Australian Mathematical Sciences Council, the Statistical Society of Australia, the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australia, the Mathematics Education Lecturers' Association of Australia and the Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers.
"Whenever we try to contact them pointing out the dramatic shortcomings and our deep concerns, the response is 'yes, yes, thank you for your concern'," Dr Guttmann said.
"They say that the profiles are not a national syllabus or curriculum. But the information from CURAS (the ministers' committee responsible for compiling the national profiles) is increasingly that they are.
"Virginia Chadwick has rejected the current proposal for a maths curriculum because it doesn't agree with the national profile."
However, a spokeswoman for Mrs Chadwick said she had not rejected the curriculum but was waiting until the National Mathematics Profile was available so the curriculum could "reflect" the profile.
The executive officer of CURAS and general manager of the NSW Board of Studies, Mr Sam Weller, said he did not understand how the academics could criticise an unfinished document.
"We've got writers at the moment working on aspects of it," he said.
"Some of the academics seem to think the profiles are a sort of a course that students undertake in Levels 11 and 12. They're not. They're not even an assessment tool.
"If, for example, NSW wanted to develop a new maths syllabus, we could look at the maths profile and see if there was anything we wanted. But it's fundamentally a reporting framework for kids up to Year 10. It's not designed to take away from the freedom of the States."
© 1993 Sydney Morning Herald