Report: 50% maths teachers not qualified

grrrrrrrrrr

Just watching the Six One news there and it was carrying a report saying that up to 50% of all secondary school maths teachers are not properly qualified!:eek:

The study was conducted by the parents society of Ireland. Some stats:

Irish students are underpreforming with only 16% doing HL LC

65% of teachers under 35 are NOT qualified!



What do you think about this? Do you agree with this statistic from your own experience??

The Dept of Education said that 65% were qualified but that this is still not acceptable



IF YOU MISSED THE REPORT YOU CAN WACTH IT ON THE REAL PLAYER ON RTE.IE

Les_Rebels123

The Higher Maths teacher= Qualified; most definately...
however,
The two Ordinary level tachers.... well... I'm gonna say NO for one of them... as for the other... well... from being in Honours, and dropping down, I Know more than the teacher does... so I'm guessing that they are not qualified either :O !!!

Its an absolute outrage!!!! because, if you fail maths at LC... you FAIL the whole leaving cert!!! This really does need to be sorted out...sooner rather than later!!! Mary Coughlan already made a huge cock-up earlier on this week!!!! :O !
Disgrace!

grrrrrrrrrr

Les_Rebels123 wrote: »

The Higher Maths teacher= Qualified; most definately...
however,
The two Ordinary level tachers.... well... I'm gonna say NO for one of them... as for the other... well... from being in Honours, and dropping down, I Know more than the teacher does... so I'm guessing that they are not qualified either :O !!!

Its an absolute outrage!!!! because, if you fail maths at LC... you FAIL the whole leaving cert!!! This really does need to be sorted out...sooner rather than later!!! Mary Coughlan already made a huge cock-up earlier on this week!!!! :O !
Disgrace!

FYI Batt o keefe is the education minister!!

Les_Rebels123

yeah... but Mary Coughlan is the Tánaiste :P loss of 500 jobs.. the government(FIANNA F*CKING FAIL) are Failing..more like Fianna Failure!!
Willie O'Dea Lying... How much more are we left in the dark about????

Had the Parents association not carried out the report... then this wouldn't have come to light at all... Now that it has.. I seriously hope the major is taken by schools, the government more so Batt O'Keefe, opposing gov. parties, parents, and student bodies alike, to get this mess sorted!!!

I'm glad that you started this thread :P I had watched it on 6.1 also, and couldn't help but think how long it would be before someone threaded it

gemxpink

Well of the 7 maths teachers Ive had since 1st year, 2 were amazing, 2 were crap, 2 were average and 1 was a science teacher.

No doubt that half of them had no idea what they were doing most of the time.

grrrrrrrrrr

Les_Rebels123 wrote: »

yeah... but Mary Coughlan is the Tánaiste :P loss of 500 jobs.. the government(FIANNA F*CKING FAIL) are Failing..more like Fianna Failure!!
Willie O'Dea Lying... How much more are we left in the dark about????

Had the Parents association not carried out the report... then this wouldn't have come to light at all... Now that it has.. I seriously hope the major is taken by schools, the government more so Batt O'Keefe, opposing gov. parties, parents, and student bodies alike, to get this mess sorted!!!

I'm glad that you started this thread :P I had watched it on 6.1 also, and couldn't help but think how long it would be before someone threaded it

You can thank me so ha.

they said they had to carry out a report cause they couldnt figure out why only 16% of students did honours

c-note

yeah i spent 6 years in secondary school,
i had 3 different maths teachers,
1 was good, 2 were bad, so thats 1(good)/2(bad) = 50%
luckily i paid attention to the good one!;)

implausible

'Unqualified' does not mean that these teachers haven't looked at a Maths book since they were in school! 'Unqualified' means that Maths doesn't constitute a significant proportion of his/her degree e.g. a Science graduate may have done Maths and Applied Maths in first year and some Maths modules later in the degree, but isn't deemed qualified by the Teaching Council.

However, when there are unemployed fully qualified Maths teachers out there, this situation should be fixed.

grrrrrrrrrr

heres the link for the report http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1066746

its the second half of d bulletin

jumpguy

I've had 2 maths teachers, with a change in LC for honours maths. My JC HL maths teacher was okay - grand but not great, my LC HL maths teacher is excellent.

Herbal Deity

Les_Rebels123 wrote: »

Its an absolute outrage!!!! because, if you fail maths at LC... you FAIL the whole leaving cert!!!

No you don't, wtf?

grrrrrrrrrr

Herbal Deity wrote: »

No you don't, wtf?

You do! if you dont pass you cant get into 99% of courses

Les_Rebels123

Herbal Deity wrote: »

No you don't, wtf?

yeahhhsss you do :P thanks grrrrrrrrrr for backing me up... thought i was goin crazy for a second.. doubted myself.. but yeah
Its as good as failing the whole leaving cert!!!

poppygirlx

I agreee!!

Mayoegian

grrrrrrrrrr wrote: »

You do! if you dont pass you cant get into 99% of courses

You don't fail the LC though:)

Herbal Deity

grrrrrrrrrr wrote: »

You do! if you dont pass you cant get into 99% of courses

99%? I think not.

Non-maths related courses have no maths requirement.

pathway33

grrrrrrrrrr wrote: »

You do! if you dont pass you cant get into 99% of courses

There's loads of courses you do NOT need to pass maths to get into. Here's just a small sample:

UCD:
french
geography
german
history
irish
english

NUI Maynooth:
english
history
european studies

MATER DEI:
secondary teaching

NUI Galway:
arts

UCC:
arts

Evan93

Yeah, you don't fail the leaving cert if you fail maths and there is plenty of courses out there which do not require maths.

Anyway, for the JC I had a good teacher who tried his best but I heard he struggles with teaching LC higher maths.

For the LC, well, I have a teacher who is excellent at maths. However, he is quite arrogant and does not share his knowledge if you will. He is well capable to teach the course but he's just too arrogant. So the problem at hand is the personality of said teacher instead of his mathematical ability.

gemxpink

cnote2 wrote: »

yeah i spent 6 years in secondary school,
i had 3 different maths teachers,
1 was good, 2 were bad, so thats 1(good)/2(bad) = 50%
luckily i paid attention to the good one!;)

You paid attention? Haha. I will save you the embarrassment of pointing out your error!

OxfordComma

To be fair, those statistics were presented in a pretty sensationalist manner, and weren't explained properly at all. The definition they were using in the survey for a "qualified Maths teacher" (I'm 99% certain of this after listening to Matt Cooper discuss the issue) was someone who had a degree in pure Mathematics (probably a B.Sc. or a B.A.). I actually thought the amount of teachers with a full degree in Mathematics would be a lot lower than this.

Not having a degree in pure Maths does NOT mean you're incapable of teaching 2nd-level Maths - in fact, someone with such a degree is probably completely over-qualified for teaching LC Higher Level Maths (not that that's necessarily a bad thing). A teacher with a degree in Physics, Chemistry or any of the Engineering disciplines would have studied Maths to such a high level during their course that they would have more than enough mathematical knowledge to teach JC and LC Maths - yet, under this survey, all of these people would be regarded as "unqualified", which is pretty unfair in my opinion.

And anyways, the standard of maths teaching in Ireland is (in my experience) pretty much the same as that of other subjects. (Some of my favourite teachers in school taught Maths, actually). The real issue is probably just that people resent having to study the subject in the first place, and find it very difficult and "pointless", so there's probably a lot of scapegoating going on here.

grrrrrrrrrr

gemxpink wrote: »

You paid attention? Haha. I will save you the embarrassment of pointing out your error!

it was a joke!!

grrrrrrrrrr

1fahy4 wrote: »

To be fair, those statistics were presented in a pretty sensationalist manner, and weren't explained properly at all. The definition they were using in the survey for a "qualified Maths teacher" (I'm 99% certain of this after listening to Matt Cooper discuss the issue) was someone who had a degree in pure Mathematics (probably a B.Sc. or a B.A.). I actually thought the amount of teachers with a full degree in Mathematics would be a lot lower than this.

Not having a degree in pure Maths does NOT mean you're incapable of teaching 2nd-level Maths - in fact, someone with such a degree is probably completely over-qualified for teaching LC Higher Level Maths (not that that's necessarily a bad thing). A teacher with a degree in Physics, Chemistry or any of the Engineering disciplines would have studied Maths to such a high level during their course that they would have more than enough mathematical knowledge to teach JC and LC Maths - yet, under this survey, all of these people would be regarded as "unqualified", which is pretty unfair in my opinion.

And anyways, the standard of maths teaching in Ireland is (in my experience) pretty much the same as that of other subjects. (Some of my favourite teachers in school taught Maths, actually). The real issue is probably just that people resent having to study the subject in the first place, and find it very difficult and "pointless", so there's probably a lot of scapegoating going on here.

Well the dept said 65% are qualified but that this isnt acceptable at that!!

Theres obviously some problem with the lack of qualification or else the dept themselves wouldnt admit it

pathway33

1fahy4 wrote: »

The definition they were using in the survey for a "qualified Maths teacher" (I'm 99% certain of this after listening to Matt Cooper discuss the issue) was someone who had a degree in pure Mathematics (probably a B.Sc. or a B.A.).

A teacher with a degree in Physics, Chemistry or any of the Engineering disciplines would have studied Maths to such a high level during their course that they would have more than enough mathematical knowledge to teach JC and LC Maths - yet, under this survey, all of these people would be regarded as "unqualified", which is pretty unfair in my opinion.

A qualified maths teacher doesn't necessarily have to have a degree in pure maths according to the teaching councils list of recognised qualifications on their website. They also list degrees in computer science, biotechnology and other subjects as qualifying the graduates in those disciplines to teach maths.

I don't know what criteria they used in the survey but according to the teaching council (and presumably the department of education agree with the TC) you need to have maths in at least 30% of your degree and have maths as a major subject - 'major' presumably meaning that it has to be part of the final year of your degree. You also have to have covered the areas of the leaving cert syllabus in college.

So yeah 'unqualified' could be a science graduate who had done maths for 20 - 25% of their degree and maybe not in final year. Or maybe an economics graduate who would have done some high level maths up to final year but didn't cover the range of maths needed. Still though those 'unqualified' people would be capable of teaching maths and if they are natural teachers may be better teachers than a maths graduate with little ability to actually teach.

There just needs to be some joined up thinking.

Redjeep!

50% !!

Wow, so three quarters of my fellow maths teachers are unqualified ?

highlydebased

Let me see

Had 2 different teachers in first year
one brilliant teacher for second year, then she fell pregnant
Substitute teacher was rubbish, thought I'd fail JC maths. Actual teacher came back a week before JC and I got a C
TY, cant remember
Last year, 5th year, excellent teacher for pass LC maths, did quite well with her. Then she was let go with the cutbacks
This year, ****e teacher who cant teach at all and has an attitude problem, saying its all our fault that we do terrible in maths and that we're "not working" even though he cant teach us in the first place. Gonna have to get grinds or I'll fail my leaving cert...

dee o gee

Well considering the two pe teachers in my school also double up as maths teachers I would well believe this, one of them I know is doing a business course, but I don't know what kind of qualifications the other has, I think one of the french teachers also tried her hand at teaching maths too.

For first year had a good teacher, in second and third year had a really good teacher who got me an A in honours JC, im in LC now and my teacher is pretty good, she will explain things until you get it and puts in time after school to teach us. I feel sorry for some of the pass classes though as some of the teachers aren't really too good.

grrrrrrrrrr

dee o gee wrote: »

Well considering the two pe teachers in my school also double up as maths teachers I would well believe this, one of them I know is doing a business course, but I don't know what kind of qualifications the other has, I think one of the french teachers also tried her hand at teaching maths too.

does it make a dif what other subjects they teach??

my best english teacher ever was a pe teacher too

DancingQueen:)

I guess i'm pretty lucky with the maths teachers i've had. I've had one from 1st to third year, one for fourth year and now one for fifth and sixth and they've all been amazing. They've all been higher teachers but the ordinary level teachers are supposed to be great aswel (all bar one).

gonnaplayrugby

if i fail ordinary maths can i still get arts(ucd)

pathway33

gonnaplayrugby wrote: »

if i fail ordinary maths can i still get arts(ucd)

yep. and a load of other courses too

gonnaplayrugby

WOOOOTTTTTT

pathway33

the list of ucd courses you don't need maths for are in this

https://myucd.ucd.ie/admission/entry_ug.ezc

Lawliet

Mine are terrible, they have to be part of not qualified team!!

Just because a teacher is terrible, doesn't automatically make them unqualified. And by the same note plenty of teachers can be excellent at teaching a subject they're not strictly qualified for.

randylonghorn

dee o gee wrote: »

Well considering the two pe teachers in my school also double up as maths teachers I would well believe this

Most Irish PE teachers are trained in UL. They do a 4-year degree with 3 strands:

1. Physical Education

2. Education, and

3. another subject chosen from 5 electives, one of which is Maths.

They meet Teacher Council standards to teach this elective to Leaving Cert level.

Those so qualified are not "doubling up" as Maths teachers, they ARE maths teachers.

Lot of ranting going on in this thread without people bothering to check their facts.

grrrrrrrrrr

Lawliet wrote: »

Just because a teacher is terrible, doesn't automatically make them unqualified. And by the same note plenty of teachers can be excellent at teaching a subject they're not strictly qualified for.

i know this hence why i did not put down a definite statement! They have to be rather than they are... its was just to get yeer own opinions on the matter and see what ye think since ye are on the front line!

Cathal93

The reason teachers are able to teach maths, and not be a technically qualified maths teacher is based on their degree. Degrees such as science and businees require you to do completely harder maths in college than in the lc, thus they can obviously teach the subject!

People constantly give out about their teachers, fact of the matter its people who are constantly complaining on boards, instead of doint homework that seem to be the "suffering population"

Get over it lads!

grrrrrrrrrr

Cathal93 wrote: »

The reason teachers are able to teach maths, and not be a technically qualified maths teacher is based on their degree. Degrees such as science and businees require you to do completely harder maths in college than in the lc, thus they can obviously teach the subject!

People constantly give out about their teachers, fact of the matter its people who are constantly complaining on boards, instead of doint homework that seem to be the "suffering population"

Get over it lads!

So you wont be ringing in Gerry Ryan over this one??:D

almostover

cnote2 wrote: »

yeah i spent 6 years in secondary school,
i had 3 different maths teachers,
1 was good, 2 were bad, so thats 1(good)/2(bad) = 50%
luckily i paid attention to the good one!;)

1 was good, 2 were bad, so that 1(good)/3(total)=33%
by the looks of it 3 were bad

grrrrrrrrrr

Is it the teachers or the students that are the problem i wonder??

Read the Q on screen!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD9PMfvan7M

sean-og3

great news for future maths teachers though!!:D

spurious

sean-og3 wrote: »

great news for future maths teachers though!!:D

Not really.
The same thing will happen as happened in other areas the mythical jobs existed. There will be an over supply in maths much like every other subject. The DES will say 'how could we have known?' and the Education Depts in colleges will continue to take in unsustainable numbers.

Enlarging class groups does not create jobs.

window_licker

having had four maths teachers in 6 years i can honestly say that its 50/50 in my experience. my first year maths teacher and current maths teacher are excellent, no complaints. My second and third year maths teahcers? Welllllll...i think no comment would be nicer :rolleyes:

marooose

I know of a few maths teachers in my own school who are not qualified in maths, but they are only teaching junior cert or ordinary level, and they all did honours for their leaving cert. They are all clever enough people to be teachers in the first place, well, to a point, and i think that if they passed honours leaving cert, they are capable of teaching anything less than that. No, I dont think it is right, but the schools must deal with the resources they have, and with teacher cut backs at the moment, they dont have much choice. Blaming this fact, however, for the lack of uptake of Higher Level maths at leaving cert is ridiculous though. At junior cert, students are being taught the course in front of them, whether there teacher is qualified to teach it or not, and if they havent got a flair or a passion for maths at that stage, then there is no hope of them going on to higher level leaving cert.....qualified teacher or not.
I just wish more people had an interest in higher level! Maths for the win :P

Orlaladuck

I've had every math teacher in my school I think O.O. Bar one.
First year - very scary man but could teach Okay-ish.
2nd & 3rd year - Was okay but still needed grinds to pass, also we got that 2007 paper ( anyone looked at/ did that one? It was Impossible and one of the hardest papers they ever gave )
TY - We had two teachers for seperate chapters. One was pretty good the other phrased everything really strangely to me so I got confused.
5th year - Now here's the problem. I had this complete IDIOT all of last year and up til christmas. He knows maths himself but can't teach it. Spent half the year putting kids down, taking the piss out of students - going around the class for instance and asking us do we think we're worth the money our parents pay for our school because we're failing at one suject? Not once has he ever ever considered it might just be HIM that's the problem. In a class test once, half the class failed and he said ' I thought it might be me until one person did the wrong question so it's obviously not me."
I've been getting grinds since xmas in 5th year but I really, really struggle with OL maths. This xmas for our tests he gave us 5 questions from the 2002 paper. I'd decided last year exactly which questions I'm going to do on my leaving so that cut 2 questions off for me from the start .I came out knowing I failed and brought the paper to my grinds teacher and she told me that half the things were phrased differently in more recent papers, things that wouldn't appear on a recent paper. (I'm open to correction here)
Got the test back, I'd failed at a lovely 29% along with half the class as usual and was told I'm being transferred to another class. I pointed out the above flaws and was just told 'you can't psycoanalyse everything', not answering my questions at all. I was moved and my teacher is Lovely, explains everything Fantastically and fully. We had parent-teacher meetings at the end of January and my parents went to see my old teacher who said I never co-operated in class, just did my own thing etc - complete bull essentially. I then found out from other people in the class anyone who hadn't come down from higher level was told they needed grinds. That's 3/4 of the class, four months before the exam and most grinds around here are well booked out at this point. The teacher still blames the students rather than himself. Going into the mocks, they didn't even have the option for section B in paper 2. Does that say underqualified to anyone else?

RHunce

cnote2 wrote: »

yeah i spent 6 years in secondary school,
i had 3 different maths teachers,
1 was good, 2 were bad, so thats 1(good)/2(bad) = 50%
luckily i paid attention to the good one!;)

i really cannot tell whether you are joking or not :pac:

thats a third my friend.. but we'll leave you off

in 5th year now, had who i thought at the time was a great teacher in first year, then another teacher came along and totally eclipsed him, he is great!!

clartharlear

Lawliet wrote:

Just because a teacher is terrible, doesn't automatically make them unqualified. And by the same note plenty of teachers can be excellent at teaching a subject they're not strictly qualified for.

Exactly.
Being very good at maths yourself does not necessarily mean that you are any good at explaining it.

The problem about looking for "qualified" maths teachers is that the qualification is for maths, not for teaching. The government only care about having people who are very good at maths, because it's easy to show that off and it makes them look good. It's very hard to demonstrate who is a good teacher, because it can be so subjective. Demanding that maths teachers have advanced pure maths qualifications is a much easier way to bang pots and make it look like they're doing something about the 'maths problem'. It's not about education, it just makes them look good politically.

doc_17

The problems are many and it isn't just underqualified/unqualified second level teachers.

Primary school teachers can achieve a D in OL maths and gain entry to colleges of education. If all you can get in OL Maths is a D you should not be allowed to be a teacher, at any level. Maybe by restricting entry into primary school teaching we could raise maths standards at both primary and second level?

There was a lad here who posted a query wondering if he could get to arts in UCD without a pass in maths. It probably took him longer to type that query than it would have to go online and find it out for himself. It's that type of laziness amongst students today that is half the problem.

Someone else on here said they already decided which questions they were going to do in the LC and only studied these for a christmas test which left them unable to attempt 2 others because they did not bother to cover them. Then that person gives out when the teacher says at the PT meeting that they do their own thing? Serioulsy folks.

grrrrrrrrrr

doc_17 wrote: »

The problems are many and it isn't just underqualified/unqualified second level teachers.

Primary school teachers can achieve a D in OL maths and gain entry to colleges of education. If all you can get in OL Maths is a D you should not be allowed to be a teacher, at any level. Maybe by restricting entry into primary school teaching we could raise maths standards at both primary and second level?

There was a lad here who posted a query wondering if he could get to arts in UCD without a pass in maths. It probably took him longer to type that query than it would have to go online and find it out for himself. It's that type of laziness amongst students today that is half the problem.

Someone else on here said they already decided which questions they were going to do in the LC and only studied these for a christmas test which left them unable to attempt 2 others because they did not bother to cover them. Then that person gives out when the teacher says at the PT meeting that they do their own thing? Serioulsy folks.

Sure what does it matter what they get in maths once they get a HLC3 in irish!?!?! (sarcasm)

gaeilgegrinds1

Ah well only half the, 'Irish,' teachers in my schookl have Irish in their degree. Doing it for one year in college is not enough in my opinion and assuch I'm pretty much constantly filling them in on background info for poems or prose or the stair na Gaeilge. We pay 90 euro a year so only qualified teachers teach in our schools and only teach the subjects they should, but...that has yet to happen! End of the day it's the students who suffer.

grrrrrrrrrr

gaeilgegrinds1 wrote: »

Ah well only half the, 'Irish,' teachers in my schookl have Irish in their degree. Doing it for one year in college is not enough in my opinion and assuch I'm pretty much constantly filling them in on background info for poems or prose or the stair na Gaeilge. We pay 90 euro a year so only qualified teachers teach in our schools and only teach the subjects they should, but...that has yet to happen! End of the day it's the students who suffer.

I dont understand this point?!?! Our parents pay more than 90yo-yos a year on taxes etc

gaeilgegrinds1

As do I, a lot more than 90 euro a year. What don't you understand there? We jump through hoops and provide them with lots of information and scripts etc so we are permitted to teach our subjects only to have teachers who never studied them teach them, that was my point.