Forcing kids to study maths after 16 is a recipe for a riot – Telegraph Blogs

Monday 17 March 2014 | Blog Feed | All feeds

Martin Stephen



This kid is going to kick off any minute now

What madness is it to demand that all students take maths from 16 to 18 years of age? The headlines shrieked that "top brains" were demanding this. If so, it puts a new meaning on the word artificial intelligence. The rationale behind this latest educational suicide note is that not enough students are doing maths to A-level, and so affecting the shortage of recruitment into maths and science degree courses. But their plan won't change anything for the better.

16 year-olds know whether or not they like maths and are good at it. The students force-fed maths after the age of 16 will acquire knowledge that is of no practical use to them. It will have zero effect on persuading more to carry on with maths or science at university because if you can't or don't want to do it at 16 you never will. We don't have enough teachers to teach maths anyway, so this joyous revolution will kettle thousands and thousands of unwilling students to be taught a subject they don't like and aren't good at by under-qualified teachers. This is a recipe for a riot.

The happiest day of my school days, which otherwise were the unhappiest days of my life, was waking up on the morning I started to study English, history and geography at A-level and realising I would never have to attend another maths lesson in my life.

If these "experts" really want to encourage students to take maths, engineering and science degrees they should strive to improve the quality of maths teaching in our schools, and look in particular at the-sin-that-hath-no-name: the number of primary school teachers whose only qualification in maths is little more than a GCSE.

We need volunteers and an outbreak of common sense from these "top brains". They need to understand lesser brains who neither like nor understand the subject. Would someone please put this hare-brained idea to sleep before it does even more damage to the standing of maths in the UK?'

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