Students are being discouraged to take up maths and science when they choose secondary school courses because of the impact more difficult courses could have on their final year scores, chief scientist Alan Finkel believes.
"Rightly or wrongly, they absorb the message that the way to boost their ATAR is to drop down a level in mathematics," he says in a report on inspiring Australia's next generation.
The focus on the Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank - the percentile score given to students completing their final studies - needs to be not only on students getting into university but also on preparing to do well, he says.
The report found overall enrolments in maths is steady at 72 per cent, but the number of students choosing intermediate and advanced maths fell from 54 per cent to 36 per cent between 1992 and 2012.
"If students do not see the value in the knowledge and skills they will gain through these challenging subjects, or see a benefit or need in relation to their post-school plans, there is little incentive for students to engage with them," the report states.
One of 10 recommendations in the report by the STEM Partnerships Forum, chaired by Dr Finkel, includes government and industry focusing on how STEM skills can solve real world problems.
They also call for a review of how the school system can encourage students to study advanced and appropriate subjects, and the impact of universities dropping prerequisites for courses.
Maths is only a prerequisite for five of 37 universities offering a Bachelor of Science, four of 31 for a Bachelor of Commerce and one of 34 for an engineering degree.
Another recommendation is that a national lifelong "unique student identifier" be given to all students by 2020 to allow them to share their education records as they move between schools.
