Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has called for maths and science to be made compulsory for all students finishing high school to arrest a steep decline in Australia's standards across both subject areas.

Speaking in western Sydney on Sunday, Mr Turnbull said the push was a "big priority" for the government, after a similar proposal from former education minister Christopher Pyne was rejected by the states last year.

"In my generation, you had to do maths or science to complete high school. Many parts of Australia now, you don't have to do that," said Mr Turnbull.

In NSW and Victoria, maths and science are only compulsory until year 10.

"We've got to get back to that and ensure that everyone is very literate in those STEM subjects. Science, maths, technology – that's the future," he said.

The call comes after months of sustained pressure from the academic and business community.

Australia stands to gain a $57.4 billion increase in GDP by shifting 1 per cent of the workforce into STEM-focused roles, a report from PricewaterhouseCoopers found.

The results of Australian students in the Program for International Student Assessment have tumbled over the past decade, after the nation's students fell from 15th to 19th in mathematics and from 10th to 16th in science.

In March, the chair of the National Committee for Mathematical Sciences, Nalini Joshi, said that compulsory mathematical subjects "absolutely have to become a national policy".

"We are leaching out the mathematical skills from the majority of the population," she said. "Apprentices are becoming bricklayers who don't how many bricks to order and students are becoming nurses who are unable to work out dosages."

This year the University of Sydney became the first NSW university to reintroduce mathematics as a prerequisite for 62 degrees including science, engineering, psychology and combined courses in music and medicine as well as commerce and law.

At the same time, UTS is about to make every student, regardless of their degree, complete a compulsory numeracy subject before graduation. 

Mr Turnbull urged other universities to follow their lead.

"The world is transforming at a pace never seen before and it's been driven by technology and by the imagination of young people. That's why it's so critical why more young people and more old people too become digitally literate," he said on Sunday.

"More universities are requiring and they should all require, in due course, that maths or science should be a prerequisite school subject to have completed to go onto university."

Labor leader Bill Shorten has focused his STEM policy on the university sector, pushing a multi-billion-dollar proposal to fund 100,000 STEM degrees, while also giving graduates access to 25,000 teacher scholarships to encourage them to become STEM teachers.

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