NZ kids slip in maths and science

Kiwi kids have slipped again in the latest international survey of maths and science.

New Zealand students’ scores have dropped sharply in both subjects in Year 9, the first year of high school — with the lowest score for algebra.

A maths education expert, Dr Jodie Hunter, says part of the reason is that our schools stream students into ability groupings much more than most countries, excluding students in the lower groups from ever being exposed to harder problems.

“At some intermediate schools we work in, when we first go in the kids have never done fractions because we’ve had them in ability groups where they have just done addition and multiplication and never been given access to higher-level mathematics problems. For some children who have been put into low-ability groups, they just don’t do algebra because the focus is on doing addition and subtraction, and that leads to the point of disengagement . . .”

The latest Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study shows NZ students have slipped slightly to 40th out of 58 countries in Year 5 maths, down from a score of 491 in the last survey in 2015 to 487, based on a global average of 500 when the surveys started in 1995.

There was a similar slight drop in Year 5 science, from 506 to 503, but this was still above the global average.

But there have been sharp drops in Year 9 both in maths, where we rank 23rd out of 39, and in science..

Year 9 maths scores were weakest in algebra and geometry and science scores lowest in chemistry and biology.