Far more student teachers than the youngest fail math

National partial examination

Nearly half of student teachers in grades 1-7 in the nation’s largest teacher-training program have failed the national partial exam in mathematics. Knockout’s manager is concerned.

Nearly 1,200 primary school students took the National Mathematics Education Partial Examination on May 23. The results are now clear and show a failure rate of 33.9 percent. It’s well above results from similar numbers from spring 2022, when 22.5 percent failed.

The repetition rate is particularly high for student teachers in grades 1-7. 41.4 percent of the 764 students who passed the national partial examination failed. For student teachers in grades 5-10, the figure was 20.6 percent.

Knockout director Christine Feigny is worried. She finds that there are significant differences between educational institutions, but the trend is for grade point averages to decrease and for completion to be lower.

It is not a good idea to present a negative result. Many of us support training for Norwegian teachers, and mathematics is a central teaching subject, Wenge says in a press release.

– worried

At the country’s largest teacher training course at Oslo Mitt, the failure rate among student teachers in grades 1 to 7 was about 47 percent.

OsloMet’s head of primary and vocational teacher education, Vibeke Bjarnø, reacts the same as Vinje.

“I have just received the results, and my first reaction is that the numbers are alarming. More targeted measures are clearly needed. To make this better, the authorities need to get serious and do something about the underfunding of Norwegian teacher education. It simply seems like Students need more teaching and closer follow-up than we can provide in the ad-hoc framework.

She would like to see Knockout investigate in more detail whether changing admission requirements for teacher education may have played a role. As is known, the government chose to abolish the four condition in mathematics and allow students who wish to become teachers to have at least 40 school credits and grade three in mathematics and Norwegian.

– It was interesting that Nokut checked the background data of those who sat for this test, and whether there was any difference between whether they had a score or a four in mathematics upon admission.

She adds that they have developed an additional measure to enhance students’ core competency in mathematics for teachers starting in 2023. Existing students will also be integrated into the same scheme in due course.

Little works well

There are also fewer people who score well on the exam.

Of the students who will become primary school teachers for younger children (grades 1-7), 15 percent have achieved grades A or B in 2022. This year, the number is down to 7.7 percent.

For students in the teacher training course for grades 5-10, there was a smaller drop. 13.7 percent had an A or B in 2023, down from 15.3 percent.

– We see that some institutions that have traditionally performed well in this test are still doing well, such as the University of Agder. There are now less than five percent of student teachers who fail, so it looks like they did something right. But, unfortunately, there are not many such examples, so there is still a lot of potential for improvement, Finney says in the press release.

difference erased

In recent years, there have been consistently better results in the spring than in the fall.

There are more study programs at primary school teacher level 1 to 7 that hold regular examinations in the spring than in the fall. Results are always somewhat worse in the fall term, but some of this can be explained by the fact that there are more exams being taken in the fall. Therefore, directly comparing numbers for the spring and summer seasons can be somewhat misleading, Knockout previously reported.

This time the results show that the difference is being erased, Knockot writes.

The National Partial Examination in Mathematics for Student Teachers is held twice a year, in May and November. There are approximately 1,800 students spread across 12 institutions and around twenty study locations.

– We know that algebra is an area that Norwegian students find difficult, and these challenges start already in elementary school. One of the desirable effects of placing algebraic reasoning as a national microtest subject is precisely to strengthen this part of mathematics education. Getting out of this vicious cycle will take time, says Vinny.