Do the maths on education choices

Calculus of employability: 'While it is true that 9% of mathematicians were unemployed six months after graduating compared with 7% of historians, the tables are turned in the longer term'. Photograph: Alamy

The Council for the Mathematical Sciences, which represents the learned societies for mathematics in the UK, (CMS) takes issue with most of Simon Jenkins’s article (The maths mechanics, 8 August). But at this time of the year, when young people are concerned about A-level choices and university options, his statements about the employability of mathematicians have the potential to cause the greatest damage.

Jenkins uses the latest data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (Hesa) to argue that employment prospects for mathematicians are worse than those for, eg, historians. While it is true that 9% of mathematicians were unemployed six months after graduating compared with 7% of historians, the tables are turned in the longer term. The same annual Hesa reports used by Jenkins show that three years later in their careers:

(a) 2.3% of mathematicians were assumed unemployed compared to 3.8% of the historians;

(b) 75% of mathematicians thought their degree was good value for money, and 63% of historians thought theirs was;

(c) more than half the mathematicians in employment were earning more than £27,500, while this was true of only a quarter of the historians (92% of mathematicians were classified as being in “professional” employment compared with 77% of historians).

We leave it to your readers to do the maths.
Professor Paul Glendinning
University of Manchester, writing on behalf of the CMS

• While referring to weak computer science graduates as unemployable, Simon Jenkins seems to think that all science and engineering graduates are worthless. Specifically, he calls them inarticulate. Not able to “speak well, write clearly”. He has a point. There is a problem. Too many weak students are recruited to these disciplines. I agree with him that education in this country needs a radical restructuring. But it’s not that we should be teaching weak science students to be more articulate, it’s that education in schools should be made more liberal. Maybe then the brighter students who are currently attracted to arts and humanities would find themselves drawn towards science and engineering. Then industry would get what it apparently wants, broad knowledge, specific skills and an articulate workforce.
Peter Henderson
Sherborne, Dorset

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