Teachers hand O'Keeffe an 'F' as maths reforms don't add up
Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe is in trouble with the nation's teachers again -- and this time it's the future of second-level maths teaching that has landed him in hot water.
Ambitious plans to reform the maths course at second-level are described as being in limbo for at least three years because a final curriculum won't now be agreed until late 2011 at the earliest, according to sources.
In a big PR announcement last September, the embattled minister, who has shown an appetite for ruffling teachers' feathers, launched Project Maths. The project was aimed at making the curriculum more student-friendly, with the intention of increasing pass rates at higher-level maths in the Leaving Cert.
It was launched on a pilot basis in 24 schools last September, but the process has been described as fundamentally flawed.
Students in those 24 schools will receive a different Leaving Cert paper in 2010, leading to concerns over exam standardisation.
Despite the three-year delay in agreeing a final syllabus, thousands of maths teachers are also due to go on in-service teacher-training training courses, and it has not yet been made clear if schools will have to cover the cost of providing substitute teachers out of their already reduced budgets.
There is widespread concern that the minister is trying to force through change without providing adequate funding, and, given the wider economic cutbacks, it is feared that the scheme will fail due to a lack of money. The pilot scheme has also been largely opposed by angry teachers.
They say it is nothing more than an excessive PR exercise and a waste of money which will only serve to dumb down the subject.
It has also emerged that the concern of the teachers has been voiced at the committee of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA), the body in charge of setting the syllabus.
Brian Hayes, Fine Gael's education spokesman, called on the minister to sort this mess out and to say clearly whether his department will cover the in-service training.
He said yesterday: "The key issue is value for money. It cannot change immediately but clearly the teachers are angry at how Batt O'Keeffe is dealing with them.
"Will the schools pay for the in service training, or will the department pay for it? He needs to clarify, because schools are already operating on reduced budgets."
But Mr O'Keeffe's department defended the scheme as helping to raise levels of students taking higher-level maths at Leaving Cert level.
A spokesman for Mr O'Keeffe refuted the claims made by the angry teachers and the ASTI. He said: "Project Maths is designed to provide a bridging framework from the revised primary curriculum into second-level and promote greater maths literacy across the school population.
It is also designed to encourage greater take up at higher level and provide a solid foundation which prepares students for careers in science, technology, engineering, business or humanities options," he said.
