Poor maths results raise concerns

&NewLine;<p><img class&equals;" alignright size-full wp-image-523" style&equals;"margin&colon; 5px&semi; float&colon; right&semi;" src&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;schoolnewsnz&period;fastrackdev&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2013&sol;03&sol;Math&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Math" width&equals;"200" height&equals;"150" &sol;>New Zealand children at Year 5 scored well below average in the the 2010&sol;2011 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study &lpar;TIMSS&rpar;&comma; ranking 34th out of 53 countries&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p> <&excl;--more--> <&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Asian nations took out the top five places&comma; while New Zealand effectively ranked bottom of the developed countries alongside Spain&comma; Romania and Poland&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Education Minister Hekia Parata described the results as &&num;8220&semi;seriously worrying&&num;8221&semi; when they were released in December&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;We have many children who lack basic skills and knowledge&comma; particularly in mathematics and science&comma; compared to children of a similar age in other countries&comma;&&num;8221&semi; she said&period; &&num;8220&semi;We must pay urgent attention to what these studies tell us and tackle some system-wide challenges&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Our students scored especially badly on arithmetic&period; When the nine-year-olds were asked how many people were aboard a ship which had 218 passengers and 191 crew&comma; only 52 per cent of New Zealand children got the correct answer &lpar;409&rpar;&period; The international average was 73 per cent&period; Yet New Zealand students scored relatively well on questions such as interpreting graphs&comma; which require more abstract thought&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>New Zealand students scored even worse on a division problem in the previous test&comma; which asked if 762 cars in a carpark were parked in six equal rows&comma; how many cars were in each row&period; Only 39 per cent of all students got this right but New Zealand&&num;8217&semi;s success rate was only eight per cent&comma; compared with 36 per cent in the United States&comma; 23 per cent in England and 12 per cent in Australia&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Education consultant Bob Garden&comma; a retired Ministry of Education research director who now co-ordinates the TIMSS survey in New Zealand&comma; said he believed the results were a concern&comma; even though modern educationalists would say children could just use their calculators&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;