Academics have warned of a maths crisis, with the latest NAPLAN results showing no significant improvement in students' performance since the tests were introduced in 2008.

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) tells a similar story: in 2012 Australian teens were ranked equal 17th in maths compared with other OECD countries, down from fifth in 2003. And the number of students taking advanced VCE maths subjects is at its lowest level in a decade.

Australia's chief scientist, Professor Ian Chubb, said the figures were a wake-up call and schools needed to do more to excite and inspire students about science and maths. "We have to lift our game across the board," he said.

How some Victorian schools are addressing the issue:

Throw out your textbooks

Parents forking out hundreds of dollars to buy textbooks will be pleased to hear that some maths teachers are scrapping them. Glen Waverley Secondary College principal Gerard Schiller said maths teachers at his school would soon ditch textbooks, which he said could restrict learning. But many schools still rely on books and old worksheets, said Mathematical Association of Victoria's executive director, Simon Pryor. "We advocate throwing away textbooks … teaching to a textbook should not be the sole thing that the teacher is doing."

No more teaching formulas

Senior maths students are no longer flipping through textbooks to find maths formulas at some schools. Year 11 Maths Methods students at the John Monash Science School are encouraged to use physical objects to come up with their own formulas. Students are folding pieces of paper to work out the maximum surface area of a triangle, as an introduction to calculus.  Students share their findings and the class collectively comes up with a formula that fits, said head of maths Luke Bohni. "It's about developing student ownership of the learning process, getting away from that teacher directed learning and allowing students to direct their own learning."

Ditch rote learning of time tables

Gone are the days of catchy times table songs and rhymes. Merely memorising times tables is useless, unless students understand what they are reciting, said Colleen Vale, an Associate Professor in Education at Deakin University. Students had become so reliant on times table jingles that they had to "go through a whole rhyme" before arriving at an answer, she said. At Sunshine College, students have to prove they understand the concepts behind multiplication, rather than simply repeating their times tables, said maths teacher Yvonne Reilly. "If we teach concepts behind multiplication, we teach them to add groups together of the same size fast. So we find activities that help them do that."

No hierarchies

Year 7 and 9 maths students at Sunshine College are not split up into year levels or streams. Based on a practice called differentiated learning, students are combined in a composite class, and can choose from a range of 12 assignments of varying degrees of difficulty. This deals with the huge spread in academic ability, with a recent Grattan Institute report suggesting the gap could be up to eight year levels in a single classroom. Maths teacher Ms Reilly said the model gave students confidence, and pushed students to their full potential.

This philosophy has been at the heart of maths program Kumon, which gives students work sheets based on students' abilities, rather than year level. Kumon spokesman Alexander Cork said "kids with remedial needs are getting 100 per cent in maths for the first time. That boosts confidence enormously."

Maths in the real world

Mentone Girls Grammar students trade stocks and some of them are making money. Well, so their calculations tell them. They are using their maths skills to analyse the value of shares and hypothetical trades on the stock exchange. Senior lecturer in education at the Australian Catholic University, Dr Jillian Brown, said every maths teacher should be making maths relevant to the lives of their students. Keeping students motivated is vital, and teachers risks losing their students if they thought their classes were pointless. "The important thing is that you care about the real world problem, so after applying the maths, you end up learning how to solve problems in your life."

Why it is important

Professor Chubb said science, technology, engineering and maths - or STEM skills - were vital for the jobs of the future. Australia needs to invest in STEM if it wants to be globally competitive, he said.

The federal government estimates that up to 75 per cent of the areas with fastest-growing jobs will require STEM skills. They are working with the states to develop a STEM school education strategy.