World Maths Day today is a great opportunity to tackle growing concerns about grade inflation in science subjects, according to Fine Gael Innovation Spokesperson Deirdre Clune TD.

World Maths Day gives us an opportunity to assess how Ireland teaches maths, how to generate more interest in maths at primary level, and how to encourage more students to take up maths at second and third level.

It also gives us a chance to address concerns raised by multinational companies about the rate of grade inflation in Irish exams, particularly the crucial science and maths subjects. More details can be found at www.worldmathsday.com including the activities undertaken by over two million students in over 37,000 schools in 200 countries.

While schools and young people are taking part in World Maths Day events, our Government needs to address underlying concerns that exist about the teaching and uptake of maths in Ireland. Only 16% of Leaving Cert students sit the higher level paper and a University of Limerick study earlier this year found that just 48% of teachers teaching maths were mainly qualified in other subjects.

Last month, Engineers Ireland put forward a number of proposals to address widely held concerns about the teaching of maths in our schools and the uptake of maths at second and third level. Their proposals include: ensuring that maths and science teachers are adequately qualified to teach these subjects, and using transition year to encourage the uptake of maths and science.

The Minister for Education should use World Maths Day to study the concerns expressed by academics, expert groups, teachers, engineers and industry about how the Irish education system teaches and encourages maths, and how he can improve this.