Nobel laureate Brian Schmidt wants more ‘literate and numerate’ students

Nobel laureate Brian Schmidt has called for a ‘national mission’ to improve school students’ English and maths knowledge through back-to-basics teaching.

Nobel laureate Brian Schmidt has taken aim at school systems.

Nobel laureate Brian Schmidt has called for a “national mission’’ to improve school students’ English and maths knowledge through back-to-basics teaching, and taken a swipe at Australia’s “crazy” reliance on foreign funding for sensitive research.

The outgoing vice-chancellor of the Australian National University – who chairs the Group of Eight sandstone universities – warned that Australia would not have enough physicists to build nuclear-powered submarines.

In one of his final speeches as vice-chancellor, Professor Schmidt declared it “crazy’’ to rely on foreign countries for scientific research vital to Australia’s national interest.

“Australia must fully fund its sovereign research capability, and not rely on international sources to prop it up,’’ he told the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering on Wednesday.

“We are the only country in the world crazy enough to prop up our sovereign research capability with international funds.

“It produces huge distortions and vulnerabilities in our higher education system.’’

Professor Schmidt, an astrophysicist who jointly won the Nobel prize for physics in 2011 for proving the expansion of the universe is accelerating, predicted that Australia would not be able to find enough physicists to work on nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS security pact with the US and UK.

“The whole system is going to start falling apart,’’ he said.

“You want nuclear physicists to help on AUKUS subs – we’re not going to get that delivered unless something happens, because we just can’t afford to do it.

“I run a HIAF (heavy ion accelerator facility at the ANU research school of physics) and that’ll bankrupt us unless something happens soon.’’

Professor Schmidt, who has served on the Prime Minister’s National Science and Technology Council, also called on schools to focus on teaching the fundamental knowledge of literacy and numeracy.

“With respect to having university or higher education-ready students, we have a real problem here,’’ he said.

“That has to be a national mission, to get people university-ready … to get out of high school with some semblance of values, so they’re not psychopaths and they’re not awful to each other.

“I need them to be able to read and I need them to be able to write and I need them to be numerate.

“If I get someone with those skills, they can do any degree at ANU, and our degrees here are as hard as anywhere in the world.’’

Professor Schmidt said schools were teaching students “a whole bunch of other stuff’’.

“I really think we need to focus on just the basics for a while and make it entertaining, make sure it’s engaging,’’ he said.

“But we really need to focus on those simple things. I actually don‘t care how much they get, frankly, in direct training in physics or science – I’d much rather they have the calculus.

“We absolutely have to get our students ready for the 21st century … whether they want to go to university or not.’’

Professor Schmidt’s concern about schooling standards follows criticism from former Australian chief scientist Alan Finkel, who said this week that high school students were struggling with science subjects because they have not mastered basic reading, writing and mathematics.

Professor Schmidt warned of “a new medieval era for research and teaching’’ unless taxpayers directly fund university research, as digital education providers bleed universities of their traditional revenue from degrees.

He said total government investment in research had fallen to 1.68 per cent of gross domestic product, down from 2.2 per cent a decade ago.

Private education providers backed by tech giants could “destroy the business model’’ of universities in the same way Uber decimated the taxi industry.

“There is going to be a huge amount of disruption in our system, as we see high-quality digital providers come in en masse and suck up some of the main things we do right now,’’ he said. “Imagine a massive tech company – think Google, Microsoft, Amazon – paired with a leading university brand (like) Harvard or Oxford.

“They produce a massively scaled-up digitally delivered degree to tens of thousands of people at a time. The lectures will be the best in the world … the digital experience immaculate.

“This system … almost certainly will give a better version of the education that many of the universities … are doing today, and it will be done for a fraction of the cost. These types of courses are the cash cows of universities right now – they provide the large student numbers and financial underpinnings of the much broader suite of offerings we provide, including our research and teaching staff.’’

Professor Schmidt said taxpayers must step in and directly fund more “curiosity-driven” research in universities.

“The value of universities is also how we will train future academics and researchers who actually do push the foundations of knowledge beyond things that are just commercially lucrative at the time,’’ he said.

“So let’s not just go with the flow, let things rip and find ourselves a less knowledgeable and poor nation in the future. If we do, we may find ourselves set back 1000 years, a new medieval era for research and teaching.’’