Robert MacCulloch
Robert MacCulloch is a native of New Zealand and worked at the Reserve Bank of NZ before he travelled to the UK to complete a PhD in Economics at Oxford University.
Those of us in the trade have long known that the quality of maths education in NZ was in decline, before it became news headlines and a political issue. So years ago, a charity I help run started awarding prizes for maths teachers. Good maths teachers have a big range of employment opportunities outside teaching – making the salaries they receive in schools often unattractive. The least we could do was offer them best maths teacher prizes. In 2017 we gave our inaugural Kalman Teacher Excellence Prize to Subash Chandar at Ormiston Junior College in South East Auckland. [Recently] he featured on the front page the NZ Herald:
By day, Subash Chandar is in the classroom, teaching maths to Year 7 to 10 pupils at Ormiston Junior College. By night, he switches on his computer, logs into his YouTube channel infinityplusone and goes live for some of his 52,000 subscribers, tuning in as Chandar K. He solves maths problems, goes over NCEA curriculums and talks viewers through previous exams. Another 8,000 follow him on Instagram; 4,000 on TikTok. This time of year is particularly busy, with thousands of Kiwi teens across the country preparing for end-of-year NCEA exams.
In addition to winning our Kalman Charity Prize in 2017, another private charity, this time Australia based, gave him their national excellence in education award in 2019. Now we’re helping fund the South and West Auckland Maths Challenge (SAMC). Josephina Tamatoa and Katalina Ma are the brainchilds behind it. They say:
The ‘trends in international mathematics & science study’ (TIMSS) scores for Aotearoa paint a bleak picture. This initiative gives students opportunity and fosters belief in their potential as mathematicians. The success of SAMC and the follow up success of Māori and Pacific students in Mathex regionally is a prime example of what happens when you instill confidence in communities.
But its not for private charities to sustain all of these activities – the Nats, ACT and NZ First better reward maths teachers way more, or there won’t be any left. Some best maths teacher prizes and the “South Auckland Maths Challenge” aren’t enough to turn it around, by a long way.
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This article was originally published by Down to Earth Kiwi.
