It takes a nation of millions to hold us back

[doodab]

And that's what we have. Millions of thickos.

Government figures show almost half the working population of England have only primary school maths skills.

Mr Humphries said just 15% of Britons study maths after the age of 16, compared to between 50 and 100% in most developed nations.

No wonder I feel like I'm talking to 5 year olds sometimes.

BBC News - Poor numeracy 'blights the economy and ruins lives'

[d000hg]

And that's what we have. Millions of thickos.







No wonder I feel like I'm talking to 5 year olds sometimes.

BBC News - Poor numeracy 'blights the economy and ruins lives'

Primary school maths is all you need in real life unless your job needs more... and since when does not studying a subject make you a thicko? Knowledge, memory and intelligence are separate things.

[doodab]

Primary school maths is all you need in real life unless your job needs more...

That fact that most people are easily bamboozled by things like monthly versus annual interest rates or two for one offers says otherwise, IMO

To be fair it appears that much of this is covered by key stage 2 so it's more a problem of people not having the maths abilities of primary school children.

One could also argue that Britain would have a better standard of job and hence the overall state of the nation would be better if people had better maths skills, which is the point I was making (hence the public enemy / hold us back reference in the thread title)

[Doggy Styles]

Knowledge, memory and intelligence are separate things.

They are all part of the same brain.

Engines, brakes and gearboxes are separate things too, but if one is crap the car is crap.

[DodgyAgent]

And that's what we have. Millions of thickos.







No wonder I feel like I'm talking to 5 year olds sometimes.

BBC News - Poor numeracy 'blights the economy and ruins lives'

For someone who champions the state education system and patently believes that we should accept the standards of teaching doled out to us, I wonder whether your own intellect is so limited that you fail to see why this situation exists..

[doodab]

For someone who champions the state education system and patently believes that we should accept the standards of teaching doled out to us, I wonder whether your own intellect is so limited that you fail to see why this situation exists..

I don't patently believe we should accept the standards of teaching doled out to us at all. The fact you assume that to be the case shows just what a waste of time and money private education was in your case.

[d000hg]

They are all part of the same brain.

Engines, brakes and gearboxes are separate things too, but if one is crap the car is crap.

I'd be interested what your view of the paralympics is then.

[d000hg]

For someone who champions the state education system

The countries with better standards also rely on state education for the majority of children. Virtually every developed country does.
So you can say England's teaching system is crap if you like, but saying it's crap because it's state education is clearly garbage.

[DodgyAgent]

The countries with better standards also rely on state education for the majority of children. Virtually every developed country does.
So you can say England's teaching system is crap if you like, but saying it's crap because it's state education is clearly garbage.

I am saying that it would be a start to remove employment protection from teachers so that they could be sacked if they were sh*t . I am also saying that the empowering of the consumer by issuing education vouchers should be looked into. I like the academy system whereby private sector schools are running public sector schools.

[d000hg]

So thats it then? we just accept it as it is?

Accept what exactly DA? Your argument that state education is inherently a bad thing just doesn't hold up. If you're going to rail about our education standards, you need to remove the anti-left-wing component of your arguments and focus on the facts in an apolitical way.