UK students skipping maths



Too many pupils taking 'easy' A-levels
The shortage of students choosing maths and science at A-level has reached crisis proportions in the UK. In the early 1980s, more than 100,000 pupils took A-level maths; now it is almost half as many. While further maths is bucking the trend, science subjects have suffered, causing alarm for industry leaders.



Maths and science should count for more with colleges than arts
subjects, says top educationist

Anushka Asthana, education correspondent
Sunday August 12, 2007
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2147194,00.html
The Observer


Students taking A-levels in the arts and humanities, including English
and history, take the easy route to university, say academics in
controversial new research which concludes that maths and science
subjects are more difficult.
Just four days before teenagers in England and Wales receive their
results, studies showing that students of similar ability gain higher
grades year on year in subjects such as English, sociology and history
have sparked a huge row.

'This smacks of utter desperation by the maths and science community,
or whoever is coming out with this poppy***,' said Ian McNeilly,
director of the National Association for the Teaching of English.
'Just because there is a low failure rate does not mean an exam is
easier. If they want to fight for their subjects, then I admire that,
but do not start knocking long-established subjects.'
Science graduates, added McNeilly, already had an advantage in terms
of what they earned in the workplace and did not need any more.

Research due to be published soon has found that the A-level failure
rate in English has been consistently low since 2001, with just 4 per
cent of students failing last year. But 16.7 per cent of students
failed in maths, 15.8 per cent in physics and 18.1 per cent in
biology. Out of 31 A-level subjects, the sciences have been in the top
10 for failure rates for six years.

'It is hardly surprising, then, that many students are attracted to
these "soft option" subjects,' the report concluded, before
recommending that 'harder' subjects such as maths be given more credit
in 'performance tables and the Ucas tariff' - a points system used by
universities that award each subject with the same score.

'Students considering what to do in life are reluctant to do subjects
where they think they may fail,' said Roger Porkess, author of the
report and chief executive of the charity Maths in Education and
Industry. He argued that pupils wanting to go to university could
choose 'easier' subjects to maximise their points and chance of
winning a place. Giving students who succeed in maths and science
extra points, he argued, would encourage more to take the subjects.

Porkess is not alone. Research by the Curriculum, Evaluation and
Management Centre at Durham University found that some subjects were
far harder. Pupils with an average B grade at GCSE, it concluded, were
likely to get higher marks in English literature or sociology A-level
than in French, chemistry or maths. Film studies came out as the
'easiest' subject.

'A-level science, maths and languages seem to be harder,' said Dr
Robert Coe, who carried out the study. 'In the context of Ucas tariffs
and league tables, where exams are treated as equivalent, I do not
think the situation is tenable.' He said it would be too hard to make
different subjects equally taxing, so also advocated changing the
value given to them in terms of university entry and league tables.

Coe pointed out that, in Australia, pupils tackling the hardest
subjects have their scores scaled up, so there was no disincentive.
Changing the system, argued Coe, was 'complicated but not impossible,
statistically or politically' given that it had been done in other
countries. He is now carrying out a much larger study for Score, a
partnership that includes the Royal Society, Institute of Physics, and
the Royal Society of Chemistry.

The shortage of students choosing maths and science at A-level has
reached crisis proportions in the UK. In the early 1980s, more than
100,000 pupils took A-level maths; now it is almost half as many.
While further maths is bucking the trend, science subjects have
suffered, causing alarm for industry leaders.

'Anecdotally, we hear that physics, maths and other sciences are
"harder",' said Professor Peter Main, director of education and
science at the Institute of Physics. If Coe's study showed that was
the case, he said, science bodies would put pressure on the
government.

Main said he was concerned that many universities did not ask for
specific subjects, but simply a minimum number of Ucas points,
resulting in students avoiding maths and science.

Already, many universities, including the Russell Group of top
universities, do not make offers based purely on the tariff system.
Some have gone further. Cambridge and the LSE have published lists of
subjects of which students should avoid doing more than one.



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