Sir, – Many additional study hours have been put into the Project Maths Leaving Cert honours course over the past two years by our daughter.
A vast amount of additional supports have been put in by us her parents and her dedicated teachers. “Double check all your answers, accuracy is key in maths” – a few last-minute words of simple advice given on Monday as she went on her way. Such a pity that the Department of Education didn’t double check the questions, a simple formula surely. It doesn’t add up I’m afraid! – Yours, etc,
DOROTHY MAHER,
Rosbrien,
Co Limerick.
Sir, – Another year, another kerfuffle involving leaving certificate mathematics. It is not a problem with the syllabus content or the teachers, or something intrinsic to Project Maths. Rather the problem is that the State Examinations Commission seems to be unwilling or unaware of the particular difficulties involved in writing mathematics examinations. How could this be? Haven’t they been setting maths exams for decades? True enough, but one of consequences of the new style of questions, that are typically more verbose than in previous years, is that the scope for error is greater. This is especially true when the questions are no longer essentially the same from year to year, and therefore no longer “write themselves”, so to speak. Both of these stylistic changes are to be applauded, in my opinion. However, because of the particular nature of mathematics, these new “Project Maths style” questions necessitate an extremely rigourous quality assurance process for the written materials supporting the syllabus changes.
The examination papers are only the most publicly visible part of the problem.
Having perused the official syllabus descriptions, it is clear that the rigour and precision necessary in any published mathematical document are, with a few notable exceptions, absent in the syllabus descriptions as well. I believe one reason we have come to this sorry state is that to a large extent, third-level mathematicians are not properly and accountably involved in the process of writing and checking these documents.
To be sure some university academics have been involved, but by and large the process is secretive and there is lack of public accountability for the content of syllabi and examinations.
On any university examination in mathematics (or indeed any other subject), there will be a list of examiners at the top of the examination paper who are subject matter experts and who must stand over the content of the examination paper and are held accountable for any errors therein. These examiners are typically professional mathematicians who have a lot of experience with the process and requirements of publishing a mathematical document. These same people should be publicly involved in the publication of both syllabi and examination papers for Irish second-level mathematics. If that were the case then errors such as the ones we have seen this week would be less frequent and students and teachers would benefit from higher quality literature to support their efforts. – Yours, etc,
JAMES CRUICKSHANK,
School of Mathematics,
Statistics and Applied
Mathematics,
NUI Galway.
Sir, – The Leaving Certificate examination is probably one of the most stressful events in one’s life; and yet again this year we see errors in the examination papers. Such errors simply should not be there.
Is this due to incompetence, shoddy drafting, lazy proofing or other reasons? I don’t know the answer to this question. But the one way to avoid all this is to have the educational mandarins who set the papers, “sit the paper” themselves in say April or May and see if they can answer the questions. If they get an A1 grade, then the paper can be released in the knowledge that all questions are at least answerable and error-free. I would have thought this should be done as a mater of routine quality control, but maybe it is not. – Yours, etc,
THOMAS G COTTER,
Professor of Biochemistry,
University College Cork.
Sir, – I wonder if the mistake in the trigonometry section of the Leaving Cert maths was down to the Examinations Commission cutting corners! – Yours,etc,
PAULINE CLOONEY,
Millford Athgarvan,
Newbridge,
Co Kildare.