Mathematical Studies

This is a letter to a blogger called Stewart Griffin who send me a link to his blog in which he denigrated Maths Studies degree programmes at Irish universities:

Dear Stewart,
Thank you for your message.
I looked at your blog.  It does not appear to
take comments, so I am writing to you.
You are seriously misinformed about Maths Studies,
if you think that this order is reasonable:

Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, Physics, Engineering (with significant maths content), Computer Science, Mathematical Studies, Chemistry, Biology

as a ranking of fitness of degrees to prepare maths teachers.
I suggest that you start by getting the facts about the maths
content of these various kinds of degree programmes, before
you lay about you in this way.  You will find that you have put
ahead of maths studies a number of programme-types that typically
involve the study of some rather small (typically well less than 50%)
subset of a maths studies programme, and certainly at no higher
level of rigour, to say the least.  Maths studies programmes entail
between 80 and 110 ECTS credits in Maths courses, depending on
whether the student takes a double-hons or single-hons degree. You
make fun of the occurrence of a 5-credit module on History of Maths
in our programme. But this is an entirely appropriate module for a
prospective maths teacher, and it was not in put there  to make the
programme easier.  A maths teacher should have an understanding
of the origins and development of the discipline, and a broad and
sufficiently deep exposure to all the mainstream areas of maths.
Fifty years ago, the standard training for a maths teacher involved
the 3-subject general degree, with maths as one of the three.  This
translates, in modern terms into 55 ECTS credits (15+20+20) in
maths, involving so-called general-level,  (pass-level) courses.  An
engineering graduate from UCD would have had a greater level
of exposure to maths, over the four years, except that they would
have been light on areas such as groups, rings, fields, and
number theory.  Many people were, and
are teaching maths with much less exposure than this, such as
Arts, Science, and Commerce graduates with as little as
one year of maths (15 ECTS credits).  With the elimination of
general degrees, the maths studies programmes were created by
adding to the general maths programmes.  The additions, typically,
involve more exposure to proof, to modern geometries, and to
subjects that have become more important in the modern world,
such as symbolic computation, combinatorics, coding theory,
cryptography, as well as history and philosophy of maths. 
In the meantime, most S+T programmes have gone
in the opposite direction, reducing exposure to maths to the
absolute minimum required for the later courses in the
application, usually confining it to the first two years,
emphasising drill at the expense of concept,
paying no attention to rigour, in short giving a narrower
and shallower maths education.
As a consequence, your school principal should on no account
send in recent graduates in any of the S+T areas you list,
except Maths, Applied Maths and Maths Studies, to teach
maths to his students, unless they have taken steps to
deepen and broaden their mathematical education.

Best regards,
Tony O'Farrell.