A MATHEMATICS PROFESSOR has left the group tasked with redeveloping the Leaving Certificate mathematics curriculum, saying she could not stand over the document produced by the panel because it is “incoherent and mathematically inaccurate”.

Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin, an associate professor of mathematics education at Dublin City University (DCU), said subject experts are not consistently involved in the process of developing school curricula. 

She is the second expert to leave the Mathematics Development Group, which advises the National Council for Curriculum Assessment (NCCA), after professor Pauline Mellon quit in January citing similar concerns. 

“I think it will do a disservice to our young people,” Ní Shúilleabháin told RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland.

“It will fail to adequately prepare them for their future lives in society and work and study because mathematics underpins so many aspects of our world,” she said.

She added that this is especially the case in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), “which is so important to our economy”.

Her complaints about the process went beyond just mathematics. 

“I think at the heart of this, it’s a systems issue,” she said.

“Subject experts are not formally or consistently included in any subject development group.”

She also said she did not believe that her concerns were being taken into account, particularly after a public consultation. 

“If I had trust that after the public consultation, fundamental changes could be made to this curriculum and errors corrected and the content made coherent, I would have stayed. But I do not trust that that is the process,” she said.

Mellon also voiced concerns about the public consultation, saying it was aimed at tweaking rather than overhauling the curriculum. Like Ní Shúilleabháin, she said her feedback had not been taken on board.

“I think this proposed curriculum needs to be scrapped, and a public consultation will not fix this problem,” she said.

Arlene Forster, chief executive of the NCCA, defended the curriculum development process when speaking on the David McCullagh show on RTÉ Radio this morning.

She said the redevelopment of the maths curriculum, as well as other subjects, is “a rigorous, evidence-based process”. 

She said that public consultation “is a really key part of that work”.

Forster rejected the suggestion that the public consultation was only used to alter the curriculum rather than fundamentally change it. 

“We receive feedback in lots of different ways on our draft curriculum documents,” she said. 

“All of that feedback is analysed and it is shared with the development groups working on the curriculum.”

She said that the NCCA summarises the feedback for the development group and that since September it also provides it with the full set of responses. 

“So, in the case of the consultation that professor Mellon was speaking directly about, the feedback from that consultation was summarised by NCCA staff and brought to the development group.”

Speaking about the departure of two experts, Forster said it is “very rare for us to lose development group members”.

“I appreciate it’s not a decision that is made easily, so I absolutely acknowledge that point,” she said.

She added that the mathematics development group, which is made up of 15 people, has “a really wide range of relevant expertise, including mathematics, maths education, and post-primary education more broadly”.

“So, that expertise has been feeding in from day one on the work on this mathematics specification.”