HC Deb 14 March 1978 vol 946 cc213-6
15. Mr. Hooley

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she will set up an inquiry into the syllabus and techniques of mathematics teaching in schools.

Mrs. Shirley Williams

The Government's reply to the Tenth Report from the Expenditure Committee on "Attainments of the School-Leaver" is being published today. It accepts the recommendation that an inquiry should be set up into the teaching of mathematics in primary and secondary schools. I hope to announce the terms of reference, its chairman and members shortly.

Mr. Hooley

Is my right hon. Friend aware that there are about 57 different types of syllabus for the teaching of mathematics in schools at the moment? Is she also aware that her Department has either surrendered or never taken any positive control over the curriculum in this respect and that the profession has not discharged its responsibilities in the way that it should have done? Will she take urgent action to look into what is becoming a national scandal?

Mrs. Williams

The position with regard to mathematics is one of long standing. May I quote the remarks of the Joint Mathematical Council, of which the Institute of Mathematics is a member? It said: The widely held belief that all children could once reliably carry out the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of numbers of more than one digit is quite at variance with the reports of HMIs over the whole of the last century. We therefore have a problem, and a longstanding one.

I answer my hon. Friend first by saying that this Government have decided to ask direct questions about the place of mathematics in the curriculum. Secondly, this Government for the first time have embarked on emergency courses to train teachers of mathematics, who have been in short supply in the last 10 years, including the period when the Leader of the Opposition was Secretary of State. Thirdly, the Government are assessing the performance of mathematics in our schools for the first time ever in our history.

Mr. Raison

If the Secretary of State succeeds in forcing Buckinghamshire to go comprehensive, will she expect the standards in mathematics in Buckinghamshire to move to the level in the various comprehensive schools tested by the Institute of Mathematics the other day? Would that be a good thing?

Mrs. Williams

Yes, because the fundamental problem is not one which arises from the organisation of the schools. It arises from the shortage in mathematics teachers and from the fact that we have as many as 57 separate curricula in O-level mathematics. That cannot be the proper basis for achievement in mathematics and never has been. The Institute of Mathematics was testing boys and girls whose primary period in school was spent under the previous Administration.

Mr. Stoddart

Does my right hon. Friend realise that many of us welcome the setting up of this inquiry and appreciate the problems which she has been encountering? She will realise, I am sure, that the great problem in mathematics starts in primary schools. Is she aware that there are many systems of teaching mathematics in primary schools which merely make simple sums difficult?

Mrs. Williams

Yes, I am aware of that. The action which the Government are taking to improve mathematics teaching in primary schools is to require mathematics O-level or its equivalent for all future intending teachers. Again, this is the first time that this has been done.

With regard to the survey which has been widely quoted, it strikes me very hard that, in a survey which also indicated that British teaching of science was the best in the world, this is never quoted, while the mathematics results are always quoted.

Dr. Boyson

Is the right hon. Lady aware that the Opposition welcome an inquiry into the teaching of and the curriculum for mathematics, bearing in mind especially the horrific results of the Institute of Mathematics report last week and that much juvenile unemployment is caused because school leavers have not the mathematics levels necessary if they are to be taken on as craft apprentices?

Mrs. Williams

I am glad to hear that the hon. Member welcomes the mathematics inquiry. But it would be very helpful if occasionally the Opposition gave credit where it was deserved—[HON. MEMBERS: 'Two years ago."] I am talking about the teaching profession and not about the mathematics inquiry. The Opposition fail consistently to indicate that we have very high and improving standards in science teaching. The hon. Member for Brent, North (Dr. Boyson), in quoting the results of a survey which was criticial of mathematics teaching, pointed out neither that the position in West Germany with a selective system had declined more rapidly nor that in science teaching we were the best in the world.

Hon. Members

Resign!