AQA, the UK’s largest exam board, is in the middle of piloting a qualification on “real-life maths” that will test students on areas like payslips, bank accounts and train ticket price rises. The idea is that pupils will be able to make more sense of tables, charts and basic statistics than the generations before them.
HSBC has been sending staff into schools in Essex to teach pupils practical maths and is now working on plans to roll out the programme nationwide next year. The bank’s staff plan to teach classes on how social media influences overspending and the risks of financial fraud.
Pupils not interested in maths might find a spark of interest if they can see how the extra knowledge can stop them from being scammed. Maths should also be made more fun – take, for example, the primary school teacher with over one million TikTok followers who has been teaching maths using Taylor Swift’s songs.
A growing interest in maths could go on to have huge economical and social impacts. Estimates suggest that low levels of numeracy cost the UK over £20bn and is associated with lower wages, lower political engagement and longer spells of unemployment.
Every year, 30,000 children who were top performers at the end of primary school don’t go on to get top GCSE grades in maths, according to the charity Axiom Maths. Around 40pc of all pupils failed to pass their maths GCSE this summer.
The OECD had said that levels of financial literacy among 15-year-olds in rich countries is too low to protect them from financial risks.
Financial health is just the start. A range of problems of the future – from tackling climate change to building the tech products of tomorrow – require decent maths skills to solve them.
Although more people are now studying maths at sixth-form than in previous years as people eye highly-paid jobs in areas such as data science or artificial intelligence, uptake at degree level has remained static.
Oxford Brookes closed its maths programme last year due to lack of interest. Others will be at risk.
If the Government really is serious about its pro-growth agenda, it must find a way to change attitudes on maths. Reeves’s vivid childhood memories about balancing the books from her kitchen table could hold the most vital clue.