Hands Off Maths
The Age
Monday August 29, 1994
Teachers are worried that the broadening of school curriculums, particularly to encourage more sport, is cutting into mathematics teaching time.
Christopher Richards reports.
A senior Federal Government scientist spoke with concern about new entrants to his Melbourne establishment. ``We're having to teach them basic maths they should already know so they can get on with the physics they need here."
Academics at Melbourne University say that, with the introduction of the VCE, a new tertiary subject was brought in below the achievement level expected of people starting the existing first-year maths.
Staffing and funding problems also played a part in that decision, but, says Professor Tony Guttmann, head of the mathematics department, there had undoubtedly been a decline in the work of incoming secondary school students.
Professor Guttmann says 10 per cent of first-year undergraduates now study another subject, maths 190, a full year behind that previous first-year maths, ``doing what they should have done at school".
The evidence from mathematicians is of slipping school standards. Now academic mathematicians and maths teachers at secondary level are alarmed at efforts to broaden the school curriculum with enhanced teaching of physical education and, to a lesser extent, foreign languages.
In sport, schools are already phasing in the requirements of executive memorandum number 764 to accommodate more physical education and sport in crowded timetables.
A spokesman for the Minister for Education, Mr Hayward, said last week that mathematics teachers were worrying unnecessarily if they thought the enhanced sports program would encroach on students' learning time.
The Government had acted because ``the health and well-being of students should be a high priority".
But the president of the Mathematical Association of Victoria, Associate Professor Dianne Siemon, of RMIT, says schools ``are being pushed" to cut into maths time and that of other subjects. During consultations on the maths curriculum, teachers have been talking of pressure on programs from the physical education and sports review, she says.
In schools, tensions are rising on curriculum committees as staff fight to preserve their area.
In 1992, a Senate committee found that physical education was being ``dramatically" reduced in schools throughout Australia. Sport had become non-compulsory in government secondary schools over the previous 10 years, and while most schools had physical education on their timetables, it was not a core subject.
In response, the Victorian Government set up its own review committee, chaired by the runner, Steve Moneghetti (a former maths teacher).
After publication of the Moneghetti report in August last year, the Government this year began phasing in an increased sport component in primary and secondary schools, including putting sport on timetables.
By 1995 the Government wants students in years 7-10 to have 100 minutes each week of timetabled physical education and sport. By 1996, according to figures from the Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation, there is to be 100 minutes of PE and 100 minutes of timetabled sport. (There are more stringent provisions for primary schools, which are also having to accommodate the focus on Language Other Than English).
In contrast, says Ms Jan Thomas, senior lecturer in mathematics education at Victoria University, the average maths class time in years 7-10 has slipped by around 20 per cent over the past 13 years.
In 1981, children in those years had at least 240 minutes of maths a week. In 1987, the average had fallen below 200 minutes and she believes it has declined since.
Dr Frank Barrington, of Melbourne University, says that while the new VCE maths structure seems to be ``holding together very well", the programs in years 11-12 ``are predicated on a reasonably strong years 9 and 10 coming before it". Dr Barrington conceded: ``If the community is unfit, something must be done about it. But the question is, do we try to press it into the standard number of hours in the school day?" Dr Guttmann and colleagues say the secondary curriculum is already full. Unlike independent schools, with after-school and weekend sporting programs, sports activities in government schools generally come out of week-day school time.
Professor Siemon, whose field at RMIT is mathematics education, wonders about the possibility of after-school sport. But that is a complicated matter. ``It's resources," says Professor Siemon, and no doubt much negotiation.
She appreciates that the curriculum is ``a single piece of pie and the time has to come from somewhere". But she says the association is ``incredibly concerned" about the significant decline in the amount
© 1994 The Age