Editor,

As a former head teacher of a girl’s science and technology secondary school, I want to make one point very clear: anyone who picks PCB (Physics, Chemistry and Biology) as a combination needs to know that there are a number of negative consequences of that choice:

1) If you are selecting that combination because you don’t like "math”, you are only hurting yourself. The single most important subject to study is math because it is more than simply computation. It is logic, symbolic reasoning, word problem-solving all the real skills you will need to be successful in the 21st century, and;

2) If you have any interest in going to university in the USA and you do not study math in upper secondary school, you will have difficulty being accepted. You also have to pass the SAT test and one third of that test is math.

So if you select PCB, it’s important that you know this and it’s important then that either your school offer supplementary math or if you have the resources get tutoring in math.

So choose wisely.

Peter, Rwanda

Reaction to the story, "Choose your A’ level combination wisely” (Education Times, February 5)