July 2023 was record breaking: Malta registered some of its highest-ever temperatures and also its highest-ever fail rates in MATSEC results. Taking maths SEC O level as an example, two in five applying for the exam didn’t pass.

The poor maths exam results prompted considerable debate about declining educational standards. But before we move to prescribing solutions, it may be worth digging a bit deeper into the diagnosis. Is the fail rate as bad as it appears at first glance? Are standards in mathematics at an all-time low?

It is useful to compare 2004 pass rates to today. Why 2004? Well, 2004 was a great year: the Nintendo DS was released, the Summer Olympics paved the way for a Greek economic meltdown a few ways later and the Iraq war started. But, more importantly, it is the oldest set of publicly available data for MATSEC pass statistics.

There are probably about a third fewer students in their final year of secondary school now than back then, as the Boomer generation was too old to have babies in the late 1990s (or too busy destroying our environment). Despite this, this past July we had more grade 1s than in 2004 (327 versus 274 in 2004) and also more students with a grade 3 or higher. Are today’s youths becoming both better at maths and worse?

The key driver of higher failures is simply that exams are now free to sit for and, therefore, students who would have never had the chance to pass or simply do not care, are saying “what the hell, we’ll give it a try. Maybe a mistake is made, or I am lucky on the day”.

That potentially includes students who failed last year and are trying again but are tied down to other commitments; mature students just trying it out or even final year students going for it despite never having passed an exam before (let’s call these YOLOs). YOLOs would have been unlikely to pay out an application fee for no chance in 2004.

The maths pass rate was actually worse in the 2000s- Dominic Cortis

One of the best predictors of the number of maths passes in any year is the number of kids born 16 years prior, not the number sitting for the exam. If we look at it from that perspective, the pass rate was worse in the 2000s than it is now. Instead, this focus on pass rates is possibly resulting in a grade inflation, as markers try to get a percentage of passers from the pool of applicants.

Although repeaters may have got a 1 or a high grade, they would probably be a negligible percentage. Using the number of kids born 16 years prior to the exams as a denominator, two from every 10 got a grade 3 or above in 2014. Now it is three in every 10, a 50% increase. 

Students aren’t necessarily doing worse than 20 years ago – at least not in the random years I checked for mathematics O level. More people sat for the exam in the past few years than there were births 16 years prior. Other than YOLOs, there could be other factors leading to that: increased immigration numbers or tertiary education students who initially failed the exam opting to resit it.

In conclusion, the higher fail rates in MATSEC results do not necessarily mean that students are doing worse at maths. In fact, there is an indication to suggest that they are actually doing slightly better than in previous years. The higher percentage of exam fails means that individuals are ready to take a free lunch. I have a hunch that similar findings could be made in other O level subjects as well.

This does not mean that the educational system is all fine and dandy. In 2004, I was following a degree in education when I decided this was not a career I wanted to pursue, as the system was showing symptoms of many problems to come.

Dominic Cortis

Our educational system has, after all, produced the institutions, newspapers and associations that have been misunderstanding the O level results: our society is  the one truly failing in quantitative literacy, not 16-year-olds. 

Dominic Cortis, PhD, is an actuary and academic. The views expressed are his own and do not reflect those of his employers.