Time to STEM the tide of science complacency

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The Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (AMSI) strongly backs the new Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Strategy launched by Australia’s Chief Scientist this week.

In an address to the National Press Club, Australia’s Chief Scientist, Prof. Ian Chubb, unveiled a strategy that calls for ‘A Better Australia’ – where there is a widespread increase in STEM literacy throughout the community – by the year 2025.

AMSI Director, Prof. Geoff Prince, welcomes the new strategy.  He warns of the urgency needed in addressing the decline in maths and stats literacy in the Australian community.

Prof. Ian Chubb agrees with US counterparts: ‘no entity as vast, interconnected, and diverse as the science and engineering enterprise can successfully operate on autopilot perpetually.’

‘AMSI strongly supports the Chief Scientist’s call for a national STEM policy and an enhanced PMSEIC to oversee it.

‘In a federation like Australia there is an even greater need for such a policy. We already suffer because school and university education come under different jurisdictions – with a real STEM policy we would identify the endemic shortage of maths teachers in each state for what it is: a national shortage of maths graduates,’ Prof. Prince, said.

AMSI’s discipline profile found that the number of high-school teachers teaching mathematics out of field (this means they are not qualified to teach mathematics) rose from 47 per cent in 2007 to 52.8 per cent in 2010.

‘For Australia to remain globally competitive our school children need to be inspired by teachers passionate about the discipline. A vital part of investment must be included at all levels of the STEM enterprise: from early childhood education through to innovative research,’ Prof. Prince said.

Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics in the National Interest: A Strategic Approach

Discipline Profile of the Mathematical Sciences 2013

For Interview: 
AMSI Director, Prof. Geoff Prince

Media Contact: 
Stéphanie Pradier
M: 0424 568 314
E: stephanie@amsi.org.au

The numbers on Australia’s decline in mathematics:

  • In 2010 the Australian Industry group said more than 75 per cent of employers responding to a survey reported that their businesses were effected by low levels of literacy and numeracy.
  • Brick laying apprentices within a regional TAFE showed that 75 per cent could not do basic arithmetic such as adding numbers with decimals or subtraction requiring ‘borrowings’. Of those apprentices, 80 per cent could not calculate the area of a rectangle, or the pay owed for working four and a half hours. And 20 per cent could not interpret millimetre measurements from a centimetre/imperial calibrated tape measure.
  • The number of graduates in mathematical science degrees is also about half the OECD average.
  • In 2006, The National Strategic Review of Mathematical Sciences research in Australia reported that Australian CEOs said that graduates from science, engineering and allied degrees did not have the necessary maths skills for the positions they applied for.
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