The Sydney Morning Herald published this article commenting on the proposed curriculum.
With four courses proposed – 2 non-calculus courses then mathematical methods and specialist mathematics. These last two are loosely equivalent to harder versions of the 2 unit Mathematics course and the Extension 2 mathematics course. Where does that leave Extension 1? Out in the cold!
I am very concerned by this move! Only a small percentage of students go on to study Extension 2 maths, but a middle subject between these two courses makes perfect sense.
What are your thoughts?
I agree and am also very concerned. At a time when we need to encourage more students into higher levels of maths and science, we seem to be scaling things back. It is ultimately going to come back to bite us once everything is dug out of the ground and we truly need to become a knowledge based economy. Simply importing from overseas is not going to solve the problem. The curriculum itself for these courses, if it hasn’t changed from what came before, seems to be cobbled together in an ad hoc fashion.