15-year-old girl r@p*d by her 63-year-old b*ddhale, 5 thousand rupees to p@tch up w@r@nt

Today, England has a major shortage of maths teachers and applications to train to teach the subject are falling. But as early as 1987, Toni Beardon OBE, then a lecturer in Cambridge’s Faculty of Education, recognised that there was a growing problem. At the same time, she saw that Cambridge students could make a major contribution to their local community while also enriching their university experience.

Now known as STIMULUS, and co-ordinated by the Millennium Mathematics Project since 1999, the programme has seen extraordinary growth. This academic year (2015-16), 190 Cambridge students have supported the teaching of STEM subjects in 19 primary schools, ten secondary schools, two sixth-form colleges, and one special school in the Cambridge area.

STIMULUS volunteers are recruited from a wide range of disciplines but the majority study Mathematics, Engineering, Natural Sciences, Medicine or Computer Science. Most are undergraduates but some are Masters and even PhD students.

Each STIMULUS placement involves a weekly commitment of usually one afternoon per week for one university term. Over the course of a year, the programme donates over 2,000 hours of volunteering to local schools.