Critical Skills ForAustralias Future

Thereport, Mathematics And Statistics: Critical Skills ForAustralias Future, found that the number of Mathematicsand Rosetta Stone V3 Statistics students and lecturers at Australianuniversities is critically low . It also revealed thatnot enough trained Mathematics teachers are entering thehigh school system. The report will be considered thisweek at a forum organised by the National Committee for theMathematical Sciences which will be attended by seniorGovernment and opposition representatives. On Monday,RMIT notified two Mathematics academics of redundancy andhave signalled that up to 25 percent of academic staff couldfollow in an attempt to alleviate fundingproblems.Jeanette Pierce, the NTEU Branch President atRMIT, said that it was absurd that the University, which isa member of the Australian Technology Network group ofuniversities, should be cutting back in the area ofMathematics, which she described as a cornerstone for alltechnological studies.Tesco shoppers bag a bargain withOUShoppers who collect points using loyalty cards withUnited Kingdom supermarket chain Tesco Rosetta Stone Hindi can now use themtowards obtaining a university degree. A new partnershipbetween the Open University and Tesco will sees shoppersable to pay for all or part of an OU course by exchangingTesco Clubcard vouchers. The OU is the first university touse the loyalty-card scheme as a marketing tool. OUVice-Chancellor Brenda Gourley said that the scheme is anexciting and innovative partnership that is true to theUniversity's founding mission: to be open to people, places,methods and ideas. She added that the partnership allows theUniversity to extend its reach to new students, who have theopportunity to gain access to its courses without incurringany debt. We aim to make access to the Universitysprogrammes as flexible as possible, she said. Thisext to giving our students a number of options to meetcourse fees, and this new deal is now one of thoseoptions. For every xA3,10 of vouchers, shoppers willreceive xA3,40 towards the cost of their OU course. The OUteaches 35 percent of all part-time undergraduate studentsin the United Kingdom each year. At undergraduate level,there are no qualification requirements to study at theUniversity, with Rosetta Stone Korean 33 percent of undergraduates starting tostudy with fewer than two A-levels.From TheGuardianAUSTertiary Update is compiled weekly on Thursdays anddistributed freely to members of the Association ofUniversity Staff and others.