If the medium is the message, what price mathematics?

A recent report in the UK newspaper The Guardian highlighted the fact that the number of A-level students gaining entry to university mathematics courses has slumped since last year. The 5.9 per cent fall - from 3632 to 3418 - compares with a 5.2 per cent overall rise in university admissions, according to UCAS, the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service.

Attempting to put the maths figures into perspective, the newspaper compared them with the number of students opting for media studies - a subject that has seen entries rise year on year by 20.9 per cent to 3235. Apart from the similarity in the number of admissions, there is little to link the two subjects, one might think. And that, perhaps, is part of the problem.

Despite the recent changes in tertiary education and the Government's goal of giving the benefits of higher education to as many as possible, the 'arts or science' dichotomy remains. If anything, it seems to be worsening (at least from the science standpoint), with an 18.5 percent decline in maths A-level entries this year.

The expansion of the universities, and the plethora of courses on offer, has helped blur some of the boundaries between the traditional arts and sciences, but maths remains a cornerstone of much of science and certainly of all engineering. Many leading chemical engineering departments, for example, have had to run remedial or foundation courses in maths to bring many school-leavers up to scratch for some years now.

Despite these worrying signs for the future of maths and, by extension, engineering education, the UCAS figures paradoxically show a 12.4 per cent rise in admissions to physics courses. But the total of 2718 new physics students compares even less favourably with that for media studies or other increasingly popular subjects such as sports science or drama - all of which attract more entrants than traditional science subjects.

As noted above, this trend away from science is not new, but it is a problem nevertheless. We can only hope that the next generation of media studies graduates are better at popularising science and technology than some of today's media.

Ironically, in the same day's issue of The Guardian that reported the 'maths crisis in university admissions', there appeared a picture spread of 'images of global pollution' to accompany a feature on last month's Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development.

Unfortunately - some might say unforgivably - one of the images selected was of Iceland's famous Blue Lagoon health spa, complete with geothermal power station in the background discharging clouds of, well not exactly pollution, but steam of course. In fairness, the paper admitted its 'cock-up' [their words] the next day. And the section editor responsible later generously acknowledged 'perhaps one of the most environmentally sound sources of power in the world.'

Mind you, that was after he had been sent to Iceland for an invigorating weekend swim in said spa. And we wonder why media studies are so popular with today's school-leavers.