Where to Now for Maths and Stats? (December 2, 2011)

 Professor Geoff Prince, Director of  the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (AMSI) usually keeps a low profile but the government's decision to axe the HECS discount for mathematics and science subjects without investing the money in alternative measures to increase enrolments has driven him to go public today with a media release: "We were hoping that this money would be directed towards specific measures for increasing enrolments, but now the money has gone into reducing the deficit. There is a very significant number of students at school for whom maths is their favourite subject, but they are not exposed to the career options that are there; an awareness campaign is absolutely fundamental to this. Imagine, in the commercial world, putting a product on the market and then not advertising it."

In their media release AMSI notes what by this time ought to be obvious (particularly to the ministers for the treasury and finance) that "a strong mathematical skills base is essential to Australia’s productivity growth. Mathematics and statistics are fundamental to solving complex problems in climate change, transport, mining, medicine, urban planning and many other areas." But that appears not to be so.

And while the need will continue to increase in say MINING and Health Care and in pursuit of the sciences, technology, engineering to say nothing of finance, "there will be more mathematics PhDs retiring from the Australian workforce than entering it by 2020. Enrolment numbers in intermediate and advanced level mathematics subjects at year 12 have been declining steadily over the past decade.

But not to worry, returning the federal budget to surplus is a political decision and therefore the well being of the nation must not take precedence.

And as Professor Prince points out: "Mr Swan suggests looking at other measures to improve enrolments, and I welcome that, but the money is not there right now so new measures will require a fresh budget allocation.

Reminiscent of School Education Minister Peter Garrett's advice to the president of the Australian Academy of Science, Suzanne Cory?

Note added 03/12/11: As reported by AAP "...analysis published by the parliamentary library on its blog Flag Post shows the number of students studying maths and science increased between 2008 and 2010. [Those] starting bachelor degrees in those subjects grew by 19.4% since the subsidy was put in place. This was a bigger increase than for other disciplines, in which student numbers grew by 15.3% blog post author Carol Dow wrote.

    "The package of changes to the higher education portfolio will bring savings of $640 million, with the reversal of 2008's decision to cut student contributions to maths and science contributing $240m in savings. Under the plan, HECS will revert from $4691 to $8353."