11th January 2012 9:00
By Blue Tutors
The education secretary, Michael Gove, has said that students in England should study Maths up to the age of 18. Reported on the BBC, Gove was quick to stress that he doesn’t intend to influence the findings of the commissioned curriculum review which will be published soon, but said that he felt it was clear that the level of mathematics in England sets us behind many other countries, particularly those in East Asia.
Gove spoke of a mathematics ‘gap’ for students who don’t choose to study Maths at A Level. He said that many people have forgotten the GCSE Maths they learnt by the time they reach employment, and that this creates problems in the workplace. Also, if a student continues to university to study a science, and that student hasn’t completed a Maths A Level, then it becomes very difficult for that student to succeed in his/her degree course.
Currently maths is a compulsory subject for all students between the ages of 5 and 16, but Michael Gove said that he finds it bizarre for students to be unaware of the development of calculus when leaving school. He suggested that there should be a greater focus on fundamental number concepts, fractions and the building blocks of algebra, and that this should happen from a much younger age.
With regard to the review, Gove said that it was not the government’s job to prescribe every hour of the school day, but that there must be an outline of what students should be studying, and for how long. He said that hopefully with 10 years, every student will be studying maths until they are 18.