“A hard look” prompted after maths failure rate triples

Yesterday, over 55,000 students received results for their Leaving Certificate exams. Over 2,000 of these students are from Donegal.

A massive 4,000 students failed maths this year. The recent reforms in the curriculum and the introduction of project maths are now to be brought up for discussion as the failure rate of the ordinary level maths paper jumped from 3% last year to 9% this year.

The Minister for Education, Richard Bruton, has vowed to take “a hard look” at the Leaving Certificate maths curriculum, particularly with regard to areas students usually struggle with, such as trigonometry and algebra.

Minister Richard Bruton

Mr. Bruton has promised that the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment will analyse the curriculum and see if any amendments should be made.

Speaking to the Irish Times, Bruton has stressed that the Leaving Certificate may not be as important as it once was as apprenticeships are growing in popularity. He said; “The number of apprenticeships has doubled in recent years, and is set to more than double over the coming years… there will be more outlets for people who want to do more applied courses, and PLC (post-Leaving Cert) courses offer a range of practical options”.