Don’t make maths and science more appealing, just teach them better

A recent campaign aims to make maths and science more ‘appealing’ to girls.

We are told “maths and science are seen as subjects and career paths geared for men” and “you don’t have to be that typical old person that’s sitting in the classroom doing maths all day. You can be young, fun, coloured hair, make up, nail polish, everything.’’

There is a reasonable concern behind this. Between 2000 and 2015, the proportion of students in Year 12 advanced maths declined by 20%. The proportion of girls studying advanced maths in Year 12 (7%) is less than boys (13%). Research about the extent of possible impediments stopping girls from studying maths or science is welcome.

At the same time, we should resist calls to ‘feminise’ maths and science — as UNSW quantum physicist Michelle Simmons said in January: “One of the few things that horrified me when I arrived in Australia was to discover that the high school physics curriculum was ‘feminised’. In other words, to make it more appealing to girls, our curriculum’s designers substituted formulae with essays! What a disaster.”

It is also quite patronising to girls to assume that they won’t be interested in maths and science unless we especially tailor the subjects to make them appealing — or that girls have no idea what subjects they should be interested in unless we tell them.

There is a much broader problem with Australian maths and science education. Our numeracy results in international tests PISA and TIMMS in 2015 declined relative to other countries. The recent NAPLAN numeracy results also indicate no significant overall improvement across year groups in 2017.

One likely contributing factor is about 20% of maths and physics teachers are unqualified in their field. This is a significant, pressing issue which should be addressed.

We can help girls excel in maths and science by doing a better job of teaching these subjects. But please, let’s not make this all about gender.