ASTI - Ireland's main second level teachers union

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Commenting on reports today regarding the teaching and learning of maths, ASTI President Joe Moran said that making maths more attractive to young people is key to the development of a smart economy.

“While the OECD PISA studies show Ireland’s second-level students perform at the OECD average for maths, it is the ASTI’s view that maths education is fundamental to the development of Ireland as a knowledge society and economy”, said Mr Moran. “This is why the ASTI has continuously highlighted the importance of improving maths education and has supported the proper resourcing and speedy implementation of Project Maths in our schools. Rebalancing the time and workload in mathematics relative to other subjects is necessary.”

The ASTI believes it is vital that every attempt is made to ensure that maths education is attractive to young people and that more young people study higher level maths at second -level and take up maths and science-related courses at third level. However, Joe Moran pointed out that resources for schools must be examined. The most recent OECD report on funding of education shows Ireland’s spending on second level education as a proportion of GDP well below the OECD average.   

“It is vital that any discussion on improving the teaching and learning of maths in our schools take into consideration the very real problems encountered by schools and teachers in delivering maths education. One key difficulty experienced by our second-level schools is large class sizes for maths.

“An ASTI survey in 2007 found that 50% of Third Year maths pupils were in classes of 25 plus and 15% were in classes of 30 plus. The decision to cut teacher numbers in Budget 2009 has further exacerbated this. An ASTI survey carried out in autumn 2009 found that a worrying trend whereby schools are amalgamating higher and ordinary level classes in core subjects including maths due to reduced teacher numbers. Experts point out that effective teaching and learning of maths requires interactive and imaginative classroom teaching. Large maths classes militate against this.”