Uploaded September 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 hours ago
SCANDAL: The Leaving Cert maths reform project: how did it get this far?
The new draft curriculum for Leaving Cert maths is a scandal. Large amounts of critical material have been deleted. Students will be left without essential maths skills and will flounder at university level. The proposed changes must be reversed.
Dr Isaac Burke holds a PhD in pure maths and has extensive teaching experience in university and Senior Cycle maths. He has compared the new draft curriculum with the current curriculum. Some of the radical changes to the Higher Level course are as follows:
Students will no longer be required to solve equations in algebra, but simply to “justify proposed solutions”. The same new language is applied to the study of calculus and probability: students will be given solutions, and will simply have to check if those solutions are correct.
Practically all topics which develop and encourage rigour and depth of thinking have been cut out. Some examples of such are the binomial theorem and discriminants in algebra, the change of base law (for logs), the angle between two lines in coordinate geometry, and p-values in statistics. There are many more.
Complex numbers, proof by induction and constructions have been entirely deleted from the course. The topics of financial maths, trigonometry, geometry and hypothesis testing (in statistics) have been reduced down to what is currently on the Ordinary Level syllabus.
All the set proofs have been dropped. Students will no longer study the proofs of any theorems/discoveries in maths and will not be required to reproduce any proofs in the exam.
Essentially nothing new has been added.
The overall result is a curriculum that is gutted of rigour and depth. Essential maths skills and foundations are absent. It will not inspire a love of mathematics. It will not train students to think critically, logically and coherently. If implemented, it will have disastrous consequences for Irish students and Irish society at large.
The question is: how did it come to this? How could a 17-member team of so-called “professionals” produce such a document? What was going on in the 20 or so “meetings” of this group that have taken place since September 2024? Why was the alarm not raised sooner?
Under the current proposals, students will be deceived into thinking that they are proficient in maths, only to flounder and fail when they enter university and the world of work. This is unconscionable. It is a scandal.
We need a strong maths curriculum in Ireland. This curriculum is not fit for purpose. It must be scrapped – and those who proposed it must be held to account.
SCANDAL: The Leaving Cert maths reform project: how did it get this far?
The new draft curriculum for Leaving Cert maths is a scandal. Large amounts of critical material have been deleted. Students will be left without essential maths skills and will flounder at university level. The proposed changes must be reversed.
Dr Isaac Burke holds a PhD in pure maths and has extensive teaching experience in university and Senior Cycle maths. He has compared the new draft curriculum with the current curriculum. Some of the radical changes to the Higher Level course are as follows:
Students will no longer be required to solve equations in algebra, but simply to “justify proposed solutions”. The same new language is applied to the study of calculus and probability: students will be given solutions, and will simply have to check if those solutions are correct.
Practically all topics which develop and encourage rigour and depth of thinking have been cut out. Some examples of such are the binomial theorem and discriminants in algebra, the change of base law (for logs), the angle between two lines in coordinate geometry, and p-values in statistics. There are many more.
Complex numbers, proof by induction and constructions have been entirely deleted from the course. The topics of financial maths, trigonometry, geometry and hypothesis testing (in statistics) have been reduced down to what is currently on the Ordinary Level syllabus.
All the set proofs have been dropped. Students will no longer study the proofs of any theorems/discoveries in maths and will not be required to reproduce any proofs in the exam.
Essentially nothing new has been added.
The overall result is a curriculum that is gutted of rigour and depth. Essential maths skills and foundations are absent. It will not inspire a love of mathematics. It will not train students to think critically, logically and coherently. If implemented, it will have disastrous consequences for Irish students and Irish society at large.
The question is: how did it come to this? How could a 17-member team of so-called “professionals” produce such a document? What was going on in the 20 or so “meetings” of this group that have taken place since September 2024? Why was the alarm not raised sooner?
Under the current proposals, students will be deceived into thinking that they are proficient in maths, only to flounder and fail when they enter university and the world of work. This is unconscionable. It is a scandal.
We need a strong maths curriculum in Ireland. This curriculum is not fit for purpose. It must be scrapped – and those who proposed it must be held to account.
