The preparation of Mathematics Teachers in Australia - ACDS

Foreword
The range of fields that require mathematical and statistical sophistication extends far
beyond the sciences, into engineering, medicine, business, agriculture and economics,
for example. Furthermore, successful application of mathematics and statistics today
requires new conceptual understanding, and computational skills that capitalise on the
availability of tools such as graphing and statistical packages and computer algebra
systems. Hence more students must be attracted to studying mathematics for longer, and
it is of great importance to the nation that teachers of mathematics know their discipline
well, are up to date with it, and know how to inspire their students.
Unfortunately, teachers who trained in mathematics many years ago are unlikely to have
acquired a sufficiently modern view of their discipline at university, or to have kept
abreast of the current tools and techniques that are more recently available.
Following our commissioned study of the qualifications and views of secondary science
teachers and heads of science departments about their science background, Who’s
Teaching Science: Meeting the demand for qualified science teachers in Australian
secondary schools 1 , the Australian Council of Deans of Science (ACDS) commissioned
the Centre for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Melbourne to do a
similar study for mathematics.
In some ways, the results of the study for mathematics may be slightly more encouraging
than those for science, especially physics. For example, three quarters of teachers of
senior (Year 11 and 12) mathematics had studied some mathematics to third year at
university, whereas only 57% of senior physics teachers had a physics major. This still
leaves one in four teachers of senior mathematics without any third year mathematics
study at university. Further it could well be that a proportion of those with third year
mathematics did not have a full major. Even more worrying, one in twelve of all
mathematics teachers studied no mathematics at university and one in five of all
mathematics teachers studied no mathematics beyond first year.
This data, along with the changing face of modern mathematics, explains why forty per
cent of those teaching at the moment were dissatisfied with their mathematics
preparation as mathematics teachers. Fewer than half of the teachers were confident that
they would be teaching mathematics in five years times.
The study also confirms that many mathematics teachers will retire over the next 10
years, and so recruitment of (well-qualified) mathematics teachers is very important. In
this regard, the report's findings are also worrying. Three quarters of schools report
difficulties in recruiting suitably qualified mathematics teachers now, particularly in
Queensland. These problems can only get worse in the short to medium term because
fewer students are studying mathematics at school at advanced levels (Participation in
Year 12 Mathematics Across Australia 1995-2004 2 ) and retirements will increase.
The ACDS regards the updating of mathematics skills for practising teachers as a major
and important problem that requires concerted responses from universities, and State
and Federal Governments. It also stresses the need for universities, and State and
Federal Governments to act together to increase the supply of well-qualified mathematics
teachers.
1
Prepared by Kerri-Lee Harris, Felicity Jensz and Gabrielle Baldwin, Centre for the Study of Higher Education,
2005, and available at http://www.acds.edu.au/teachsci.pdf
2
Prepared by Frank Barrington, Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute, 2006, and available at
http://www.ice-em.org.au/pdfs/Participation_in_Yr12_Maths.pdf
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