The Prime Minister has signalled his intent to take on the unenviable task of reforming maths education. Even though there have been some objections, the policy has a lot of promise. Despite technological advances and the fact we all carry a calculator in our pockets (and for that matter our bank), the ability to do basic maths remains an essential part of our everyday lives. Given its importance, providing another two years of maths education should be a no-brainer.
What will take brains, is nuancing the policy to ensure it is a success. Sixteen is still a perfectly suitable age for many children to move away from pure mathematics. To address this, children who aren’t taking maths A-Level shouldn’t have to continue learning new academic concepts and theories past GCSE. Instead, they should be applying the concepts and theories they’ve been taught for years in more practical situations. They should be taught Applied Maths. By doing this, we can better prepare them for the world they are about to enter once they leave school.
Applied Maths courses could focus on teaching children how to apply their existing maths skills to day to day personal and work life. Budgeting a monthly paycheck or financing for a project management situation would provide useful and practical experience. What’s more, teaching children this after GCSE level has the added benefit of being taught closer to the point at which they’ll actually have to begin using these skills in adult life.
Making this distinction between A-level maths and Applied Maths will be vital if the policy isn’t to fail – as far too many education reforms do. The simple truth is that if the policy ends up being a simple continuation of current maths education for a further two years then its benefits will be minimal. Its success rests on making it as beneficial as possible to both children, parents and teachers. And that will involve explaining to children, parents and teachers the value of continuing maths education beyond 16.
Children often complain of having to learn things like trigonometry that they are unlikely to use later in life. Let’s listen to them and think of the financial milestones we encountered going into adulthood and how we could have been better prepared. Whether it be doing your first weekly food shop, renting your first flat, paying your first set of bills, booking your first holiday or buying your first car, children will see the merit in practising real world examples.
Beyond this we can also teach children how to make sense of interest rates, factor savings into their monthly budgets and the best forms of investment to consider so that they can make their money work for them. Creating a nation of savers and investors will produce a society more resilient to economic hardship, that can weather the next cost of living crisis more easily, and recover even quicker.
The value of pension savings should also be a key part of this. The government is looking to extend auto-enrolment to 18-year-olds, but without learning about the life-long savings journey they need to make for their retirement, many kids will see this as a needless expense when they start their first job and opt out.
The need for this is accentuated by the fact that the pensions savings gap is getting bigger – recent polling conducted by my company, True Potential, has shown that pension savings are down by almost a third compared with what they were five years ago, with pensioners at risk of being left on less than £10 per day to live off in retirement. Getting people started on their pensions earlier can stop the ticking time bomb of a generation that could struggle in retirement.
The private sector has stepped in to fill the gap for financial literacy education where it can. True Potential was a founding partner of the national Social Mobility Pledge in 2018, alongside former Education Secretary Justine Greening, with the aim of increasing access to career opportunities in financial services. Furthermore, we have joined forces with the Open University to create the True Potential Centre for the Public Understanding of Finance, which offers free financial education courses to people online. Almost one million people have taken the course to date. We’ll keep going, but I’m acutely aware millions more are missing out on practical maths education.
That’s why I’m so certain Sunak’s maths education reforms are long overdue. Making our children more maths literate can help them in work and play, while also solving some of the big challenges facing our country. So Rishi, I’d say the sums add up.
Daniel Harrison is chief executive of True Potential.
