7 June 2022
Elliot Marshall
By email:
[FYI request #19268 email]
Dear Elliot
I refer to your request for information under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act) dated 3 May
2022. You requested information regarding student retention in the University’s Department of
Mathematics and Statistics.
As noted to you in our email of 9 May 2022, your request in its original form was very complex and
would take our staff extensive time to research and collate the information. The University does not
hold in the information in the format you requested, and our staff advised that because of all the
specific details you requested, it would take them extensive manual time to collate the information.
Given the time it would take our staff to provide the requested breakdowns, we would have been
likely to decline providing all this information pursuant to section 18(f) of the Act on the basis that it
would require substantial collation and research.
In your email dated 9 May 2022, you agreed to limit the scope of your request to:
• the total number of students who studied an Honours and/or Masters’ degree in maths
between 2010 and 2022;
• the number of PhD students who started in the maths department between 2010 and 2022;
and
• how many of these honours/Masters’ students went on to study a PhD at Otago.
Please see below our responses to each of your questions.
Total number of students who studied an Honours and/or Masters’ degree in Mathematics
between 2010 and 2022
Subject to the following comments, please see the below table which shows the number of
enrolments in Masters’ or Honours Programmes with a Mathematics subject area from 2010 – 2022.
• Students are counted each year they are enrolled in their respective programme; therefore
some students are counted multiple times in the table. However, we note that there were
62 individual students in total enrolled in the programmes detailed in the below table from
2010 – 2022.
• The Bachelor of Science with Honours (4 year) refers to the Undergraduate Honours
programme before the Honours programme became a separate 1 year Postgraduate
Honours.
• Please note that the 2022 enrolments are correct as at 30 April 2022.
Programme Name
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022
Master of Arts
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Master of Science
1
0
2
2
0
0
2
3
2
5
6
3
4
Bachelor of Arts with
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
Honours
Bachelor of Science
0
0
0
2
2
2
5
4
7
6
5
4
2
with Honours
Bachelor of Science
15
13
10
2
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
with Honours (4 year)
How many of these Honours/Masters’ students went on to study a PhD at Otago
Of the students in the above table, 10 students progressed to PhD study:
• 7 students enrolled in a MATH 900 Level research paper (PhD);
• 2 students enrolled in a PhD paper in another subject that was partially or wholly supervised
by Mathematics and Statistics staff; and
• 1 student enrolled in a PhD other than MATH and was not supervised by Mathematics and
Statistics staff.
The number of PhD students who started in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics
between 2010 and 2022
Please see the below table which shows the number of new enrolments to a MATH 900 Level
research paper (PhD) from 2010 – 2022.
First Year in a MATH 900 Level paper (PhD)
Number of Students
2010
3
2011
2
2012
4
2013
4
2014
4
2015
0
2016
0
2017
1
2018
2
2019
1
2020
2
2021
1
2022 (as at 30 April 2022)
1
Total
25
I note that in addition to the students who enrolled in a MATH 900 Level research paper from 2010 –
2022, there will have also been students enrolled in PhD papers in other subject areas who were
supervised or co-supervised by staff in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics.
I trust you will find this information helpful.
Yours sincerely
Kelsey Kennard
Official Information and Compliance Coordinator
Office of the Registrar
