Leaving Cert maths overhaul faces further criticism as second expert resigns

Vivienne Clarke

Associate Professor of Mathematics Education at DCU, Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin, who has stepped down from the Mathematics Development Group, which advises the National Council for Curriculum Assessment, said she did so because she was not prepared to be associated with a document of such poor quality that was “incoherent and mathematically inaccurate.

“I think it will do a disservice to our young people,” she told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.

“It will fail to adequately prepare them for their future lives in society and work and study because mathematics underpins so many aspects of our world but particularly STEM which is so important to our economy. And I think at the heart of this, it's a systems issue.

"Subject experts are not formally or consistently included in any subject development group.”

Ní Shúilleabháin said that the work being done by the Mathematics Development Group was “hugely important”, as its role was to effectively draft the new maths curriculum specification for the way maths was being taught in schools.

“Mathematics is a human endeavour like all other subjects and it's important that we look at what we are teaching our young people, consider is it of value to them, is it going to prepare them for their future lives in society, in work, in study and consider then what is it that we should be asking them to learn or the skills we ask them to build while they are in school.”

In January, Professor Pauline Mellon also left the group expressing similar concerns.

Ní Shúilleabháin pointed out that experts were being asked to participate in curriculum changes, but their contributions were being ignored which had led to “frustrations and resignations” in other science subjects.

“I'm very worried about the lack of rigor or the reduction in content and abstraction that we have for our high achieving students, this seems to be a systems issue.

“There were excellent people on this group and I want to absolutely say that I very much enjoyed working with people on the group and there's some excellent teachers on the group and that is necessary.

“However, the balance of subject matter experts has to be there with pedagogy experts and teachers, as is done in most other countries where you have a good balance of subject experts and teachers. But in this case, it's the decision-making processes that continue to be opaque.

“Within the group, if people made suggestions, you would not understand or realise if they would be adopted or not, if they were agreed with or not, if they would be ignored or not, because mathematical errors, as an example, were independently and objectively corrected by separate members of this group and that has been consistently ignored.”

When asked if efforts were being made to dumb down the Leaving Cert maths course, Ní Shúilleabháin said she did not like such language, but there had never been an opportunity to ask what would students need in 10 years time.

“They're going to be graduating at a time or coming into a world of work at a time that is data-driven and AI-based.

"Is there mathematics topics or mathematical skills that we are not teaching them currently that will benefit them into the future? That discussion was not had, and I think that's to a detriment of our young people.”

The decision-making process on the curriculum was very opaque, she added. It was not known within the subject groups what suggestions, proposals or corrections would be accepted.

“If I had trust that after the public consultation, fundamental changes could be made to this curriculum and errors corrected and the content made coherent, I would have stayed. But I do not trust that that is the process.”

Ní Shúilleabháin said she “consistently” shared her concerns with the Mathematics group and members of the NCCA and had requested a meeting with the Minister for Education.

“My concerns go beyond mathematics. I also think that we should be really preparing our young people for the climate and nature crisis that are ahead.

"If we look at our biology curricula, plant-based science has been reducing in content consistently. That's because the subject matter experts aren't there. This is a systems problem with how we design our national policy documents that are our curriculum documents for secondary schools."