PUPILS in Scottish schools are expected to narrow down their subject choices too soon, an academic has warned.

Dr Liberty Vittert, a lecturer in statistics from Glasgow University, believes teenagers rarely know what they want to do for a career.

She said: “In school they have to choose the Highers that will determine what they will do in later life. That is crazy.

“Who knows what they want to do when they are 17? I’m a strong proponent of changing the system.”

Ms Vittert, who also has her own television cookery show, also called for improvements to the way mathematics is taught.

She said: “We teach kids to read in a hundred different ways. If you can’t figure it out one way, someone teaches you a different way.

“That doesn’t happen with maths. I believe everyone can learn maths. They just have to be taught in a way that works for them.

“[At university] the onus is on me to find a way to help them learn. A lot of academics think they are paid to do research, which is true to an extent, but I am paid to teach.”