Last month, Minister for Education Mary Hanafin suggested that bonus points should be awarded to honours level maths students who opt for science, technology and engineering courses, saying it would encourage students to take higher level maths and also to go into university courses that have been under-prescribed in recent years. However, according to Dr Richard Watson of NUI Maynooth, the scheme could easily reinforce the view that honours level maths is only for the brightest students. "This introduction of bonus points needs to be looked at carefully, " he said. "At the moment, only a very small percentage of students can take honours maths at senior cycle based on their Junior Cert. It seems to me that this may just help a small cohort of students who are already good at the subject."

Currently, only 41% of students take higher Junior Cert maths and of these just 44% achieve a grade C or higher, meaning that at senior cycle, just 18% of students can apply for higher level maths.

"Addressing the problem at senior cycle is too late, " said Watson. "We need to look at the Junior Cert and investigate why so many students are being streamed into ordinary level maths without being given a chance to develop their skills."

Professors also expressed concern at the quality of maths teaching in secondary schools, with strong anecdotal evidence that many pupils are being taught by inadequately qualified teachers. "There is a huge lack of people going in for mathematics at third level, particularly to teach, " said Prof Ted Hurley at NUI Galway, which is introducing an Education and Mathematics degree next year to address the problem. "So we would often hear of pupils being taught by teachers who aren't even qualified and that adds to the problem."

If bonus points are introduced for science and engineering courses but not for mathematics at third level, that will also cause problems. "It might suggest to some people that the main purpose of mathematics is its use in other disciplines, whereas it is all by itself an attractive and challenging discipline, " said Watson.