If maths isn’t your thing, and you were hoping to coast into Sydney Uni without mastering your derivatives and memorizing that pesky quadratic equation, you’re in strife (although not really until 2019 when these changes actually take place.)
The courses effected cover a pretty broad spectrum. Including: psychology, engineering, music, medicine and of course, engineering.
Sydney uni have introduced the changes in an attempt to combat lower mathematics standards and follow from a 10 year plan to make maths compulsory that was announced by the Federal Education Minister just last week.
The Chair of the National Committee for Maths and Sciences, Nalini Joshy, said “apprentices are becoming bricklayers who don’t how many bricks to order and students are becoming nurses who are unable to work out dosages” and that mathematics subjects should become a national policy.
While it sucks to hear that we aren’t as great at maths as we used to be, it’s kind of a fair point. The amount of students taking advanced or extension maths in HSC has dropped by almost half since 2003.
Besides getting into the course you want at Sydney Uni, taking more advanced math classes could have other advantages.
While at first, this felt like a rough move that might exclude a lot of people who don’t have strong maths skills from getting into the course they want, but in a way it makes a lot of sense. There has been a lot of talk recently around what skills we need to be learning in school to help us get jobs when we finish study, and it seems like we actually need to be getting a lot better at maths if we want to stay employable.
The jobs available in emerging areas are really pushing for young people to have strong science, technology, engineering and maths skills, which we just aren’t getting. But it’s ok, it isn’t our fault. The education sector hasn’t really made much of an effort to encourage students to study in these areas. Until now.
Maybe this is the first step toward a more employable future ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ?
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