Only a dangerously low proportion of our high school pupils, though, are attempting the toughest of HSC tasks: calculus.
Calculus is the core of any science, technology, engineering and maths-based learning. Take calculus out of a child's education and you are considerably reducing their career options. As the trend continues, you are also threatening Australia's economic future.
Between 2004 and 2014, the proportion of NSW students studying non-calculus practical maths courses at high school rose 20 per cent versus a 14 per cent fall for calculus-based maths.
We need to make maths more fun and inspiring. But we also need to make maths harder for kids.
"When we reduce the quality of education that anyone receives, we reduce the expectations we have of them," quantum physicist Michelle Simmons, who heads the Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology at the University of NSW, said in the Australia Day speech. "If we want people to be the best they can be, we must set the bar high and tell them we expect them to jump over it."
While Professor Simmons' view is astute, maths will need to be made fun for students if they are to rise to the harder challenges she proposes.
Being a maths or science teacher is a tough job, but someone's got to do it. In fact many more people need to give it a go.
