Engineering courses cannot recruit. A campaign to promote engineering as exciting, relevant and remunerative was launched last week.
The mathematical skills of students entering engineering and science courses in further and higher education must be improved, and the teaching of primary maths should be enhanced, states a new report.
The report, A Mathematical Foundation, states that students with maths A levels are not opting for engineering and science courses. This has forced universities to lower entrance standards and alter curricula to reduce maths content.
Other contributory factors to the dearth of mathematically able students are: the failure at secondary level to connect maths concepts with their application to science and engineering, the perception that maths and physics are difficult, and the significant number of secondary maths, physics and chemistry teachers with relatively poor qualifications in these subjects.
The working party that wrote the report, made up of representatives of the Engineering Council, the Society of Education Officers and the Standing Conference on Schools' Science and Technology, has proposed four objectives; to ensure that courses preparing students for university science, engineering and other technological degrees have the necessary maths content; to improve the quality of teaching in maths and related subjects through recruitment and initial and continuing professional development; to improve the quality of learning in maths; and raise the post-16 level of science and maths competence.
The report also notes that unless a strong foundation is laid in primary school, later teaching is mainly remedial and corrective.
It recommends that primary teacher trainees are properly prepared to teach maths and highlights the need for continuing professional development, particularly at the primary level.
Improvement is essential if industry and the UK is not to be disadvantaged and uncompetitive, says the report.
The need for an informal federation to enable collaboration and coordination between interested groups is also suggested. This could be established by the three groups in the working party.
The key recommendations have been sent to Gillian Shephard, education and employment secretary.
Meanwhile, Jim Campbell, director of the University of Warwick's Institute of Education, told the British Association science festival in Birmingham that accurate information about primary literacy and numeracy standards was not available because the Government had abolished the monitoring agency, the Assessment of Performance Unit. He also said the national curriculum had probably failed to raise standards.
A Mathematical Foundation is available from the Engineering Council on 0171 240 7891.