Rishi Sunak is putting maths at the heart of the effort to make his time in office count. Under proposals announced today (4 January), he wants to extend compulsory maths education to those aged 16-18, effectively ensuring no one drops maths before university. But it’s unclear if the scheme adds up.
Extending maths education to 18 isn’t an absurd plan. It is the norm in most European countries, where the baccalaureate exams have a compulsory mathematical element of varying difficulties, depending on aptitude and specialisation. Equally, Sunak is right that many modern career require data literacy built on a solid grasp of mathematics, and around 8 million adults in Britain indeed have the numeracy skills we expect of primary school children. What’s unclear is whether an extra two years of arithmetic is the answer.
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