James Cook University Introduced a Remedial Maths Course to Overcome Deficiencies of Matriculates. (October 10, 2006)

    According to The Australian's Paige Taylor "James Cook University revealed yesterday it had become so frustrated by falling standards among high school graduates, and confused by a lack of parity between states, that it joined Wollongong University and the Australian Defence Force Academy in conducting a maths exam of its own design on first-year science and engineering students."

The head of maths, physics and information technology at JCU, Associate Professor Wayne Read, says that less than half of the Queensland students that chose to sit the exam passed.

Overall of the 440 examinees, 190 had been allowed to proceed with advanced mathematics

 while 250 were sent to complete a "look-alike" high school Maths B course run by the university. Some 50 of those students had in fact already done Maths B at high school,  but on the other hand 80% hadn't.

"There has certainly been a decline in the (mathematical) abilities of students when they enter

 university," said Professor Read, who has been an academic since 1987. "That decline started in the early 1990s."

Voliva's flat earth map. Modern Mechanics and Invention, October, 1931.

However, one well placed academic has pointed out to TFW, "When an issue like this surfaces it is important to separate out different issues. Is it a bad curriculum or is it a bad choice (poor preparation). For example, at least one Australian University has had to develop a first year  physics course for engineering students who did no physics or maths  in the HSC. This is to address a problem with students not making  the right choice for final year courses."

So how much of the observed deficiency is the result of poor teaching / curriculum and how much to inadequate counselling and in reality it is that the students have made the wrong choices before arriving at university.

Nevertheless, The Australian Institute of Physics and the Heads of Physics Departments have previously called for a national approach to avoid some of the problems that are of concern. Their primary concern and the matter has been raised that it is currently too  easy for the curriculum at the state level to be 'hijacked' by some  local ideologue. Perhaps if there were a national curriculum, it might be more difficult to chase the whim of a local firebrand.

On the other hand we are currently witness to ideologues on the federal level who might well have a more far-reaching effect. It was Malcolm Farr in The Daily Telegraph who made the observation last week, "Nothing wows a Maoist like centralised power, and here was Julie Bishop proposing a Federal takeover of education..."

However, he also comments, "[I]f all the Maoists in Australia gathered in a telephone box there would still be room for the AGM of the Flat Earth Society." All of which would seem to indicate that not all ideologues are Maoists.