Michaela Grubesa from the SPÖ election commission cannot count. She’s not alone in that. Studies show that mathematics is a problem for many. It starts at school.
If there were an association for dyscalculia, she would be the logical president: Michaela Grubesa from the SPÖ election commission is the symbol of dyscalculia after the Doskozil-Babler drama. Otherwise she would have noticed straight away: 316 + 279 = 595 and not 596. To be fair, it has to be said that you and your commission, which is not overly talented, are not alone. Depending on the study, it is feared that more than a million Austrians have a clear math deficit. And it starts at a young age. Here are the most important facts about the so-called Grubesa effect: According to the current PISA study from 2018, which examines the performance of students aged 15 and 16 in reading, mathematics and natural sciences, every fifth student in a risk group counts around one in five (21 percent) in Austria is a risk group. This means that they have gross deficiencies in their math skills. Only 13 percent of the students are able to solve more complex mathematical problems that go beyond converting currencies. Although Austria is just above the OECD average, our neighboring countries such as Slovenia and Switzerland are significantly better.Despite the Matura, basic arithmetic skills are missingIt is therefore no wonder that, according to current feedback to the Ministry of Education, 8.4 percent of this year’s central mathematics Matura of AHS students flew through. But even those that pass do not always have sufficient skills. As early as 2018, the Vienna University of Technology (!) criticized the lack of “mostly elementary mathematical skills” among first-year students in an open letter to the then Education Minister Heinz Faßmann (ÖVP). In the 1980s, the Vienna Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) already pointed this out to a decline in the numeracy skills of young people. Up to 25 percent of young adults are currently customers of debt counseling. If there is a lack of banal arithmetic, it is also difficult to classify numbers and orders of magnitude. Black future And the mathematical future of the country does not necessarily look rosy either. According to international studies, school closures during the pandemic have led to major learning losses, especially in math.
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