There's something about maths...

If you want to get a good conversation going in the chemistry staffroom, bring up the issue of maths. No-one, it seems, is any good at maths any more. People will argue that it isn’t taught the way it used to be and students don’t know how to apply it to chemistry.

Different education systems have different requirements for maths at university level. In the Irish system, most if not all science courses would have entry requirements that mean students take maths to their final year in school. In the UK, some universities require maths at upper school level, others don’t. This means it is difficult to pinpoint where the problem – and there is a problem – lies.

Michael Seery discusses the maths problem