American Chamber of Commerce welcomes maths uptake
The head of the American Chamber of Commerce has welcomed the uptake in the number of Leaving Cert students taking higher level maths.
The spotlight has been on the subject this year with the introduction of a new 'Project Maths' syllabus.
It has resulted in a record number of people taking the higher level paper, and a pass rate of nearly 98%.
Everyone who passed Higher level Maths gets 25 bonus points.
Peter O'Neill, President of the American Chamber of Commerce and MD of IBM Ireland, said it is crucial for jobs that schools encourage maths and science-related skills.
Mr O'Neill said: "If you took a look at our own country, many years ago the focus was on lower level manufacturing and call centres. That has changed dramatically over the past couple of years to much higher level areas such as pharmaceutical, medical devices and software development.
"A lot of those jobs need skills in the science and maths areas."
