Events

In association with UCAS, Advisory Committee on Mathematics Education (ACME) and The Nuffield Foundation.

The STEM Advisory Forum held a face-to-face conference on Mathematics and University Entry Preferences on Friday 25 June 2010.

Enhancing mathematics as a subject for entry to university is now possible because the numbers studying advanced level mathematics has been increasing at 10 per cent per year over the last 3 years. This excellent "bottom up" development - paralleled by rises in further mathematics - is not widely appreciated. Importantly, it offers universities an opportunity to reassess how they view mathematics.

This meeting with admission tutors and officers was organised to bring these developments to the attention of universities and to discuss what could be done to build on them. It is clearly sensible to capitalise upon this opportunity to improve numeracy in our university students and to try and maintain the momentum. The meeting has the full backing of the government's STEM programme (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) but the practical implications go far wider than enhancing mathematics in STEM subjects.

This event was organised by the STEM Advisory Forum (funded by government) in partnership with UCAS, The Nuffield Foundation and the Advisory Committee on Mathematics Education (ACME).

An on-line discussion last autumn run by the STEM Forum highlighted the positive shifts in mathematics and raised the possibility that, if handled properly, this could lead to a sharp increase in the level of numeracy skills amongst our undergraduates, especially in subject areas within science where mathematics is not considered to be an essential subject (e.g. biological subjects, chemistry and medicine) and within the social sciences where there are many calls for more quantitative skills, and in a number of humanities disciplines. The STEM Forum discussed what might be undertaken and received support from within government as well as from partner organisations to ask the question: could universities be encouraged to raise the visibility of mathematics as potentially a preferred subject at advanced level? Since admission tutors and admission officers are the key people in determining university entrance preferences we felt it most sensible to bring together a number of such persons and share with them the outcomes of discussions to date.

The event

The programme started with two short presentations, outlining the issues, by Sir Brian Follett, Chair of the STEM Advisory Forum and Roger Porkess, Chief Executive of MEI. To view the presentations from the day, please click on the link 'presentations' on the left hand side of the page. Following the presentations, a panel of experts raised relevant issues and answered questions from the floor. Expert panel:

This was followed by a second discussion period in break out groups, reflecting the attendee's particular focus (e.g. STEM, "bio"-STEM, social sciences, humanities).

For the final part of the afternoon, delegates took part in round table discussions. To view a summary of comments by the expert panel and by delegates both in plenary and in subsequent round table discussions clink on the link below.

Summary of discussions at STEM Forum event 25 June 2010

We have also just published a new discussion on this topic and would be very interested to hear your views. To take part, please just click on the link below:

Increased numbers of students taking A level and Further Mathematics (Opens a new browser window)

A discussion on university entry preferences took place on the on-line Forum during autumn 2009. The summary of this discussion can be found at the link below:

University entry preferences discussion summary (Opens a new browser window)

STEM Advisory Forum