Minister does the maths
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THOSE teachers who tried to humiliate the Education Minister yesterday, shoving Seanie FitzPatrick masks and anti-NAMA posters in her face and jostling her and shouting would have been better advised to listen to what she had to say.
Of course they are fed up hearing that the Government will have to spend less on public services. If the message has not sunk in by now it never will.
More excitingly, Mary Coughlan told the school teachers that she favours a bonus point system for higher Leaving Cert maths, to encourage more students to embrace maths, science and technology at third level.
The news, which ought to have been greeted with some interest by the assembled educationalists, was instead received in stony silence, as was the rest of the minister's address.
She needed to be taught a lesson, it seems.
It is good that the Government is about to address a fundamental failing in our education system, one which seriously threatens to relegate the Irish economy to a second division, with Irish graduates regarded as innumerate.
Our maths shortcomings have been well documented -- maths is not even compulsory in the Leaving Cert -- and the Government has been warned by potential employers that we are allowing a big problem to develop.
Worse still, many schools are steadily dropping physics and chemistry from their curricula.
Why should we be concerned about this, and why is the minister's statement of intent so important?
The answer lies in the enthusiastic welcome afforded to it by the Irish Information and Communications Technology sector yesterday and by a number of coincidental job announcements.
Five leading multinational companies have just announced 175 job vacancies, most of them permanent and technology-based.
On the same day, Crann, the nanoscience research institute based at Trinity College Dublin, and University College Cork, announced that it is to create a total of 17 jobs in research and development.
The new jobs may seem a drop in the ocean against the country's massive unemployment figures but, in the midst of a recession, they are encouraging.
And the fact that they are arriving now, against the recessionary tide, shows the importance of urgently preparing the knowledge economy.
The simple step of rewarding the pursuit of excellence in maths would be a good first step on this road.
Irish Independent
