>> Folk should take principal responsibility for their own outcomes. Ridicule, not sympathy may reinforce the
>> message. Removing benefits from the innumerate who refuse lessons may be a motivation.
Carrots usually work better than sticks. Making the poor poorer and impoverishing their children as with the Benefit Cap and Two Child Limit is simply cruel. Neither of those policies has had the slightest effect.
What is the actual problem the PM is trying to tackle with Maths to 18?
If we need more people with a grasp of real maths, the sort needed to progress in engineering etc, then he may be on to something.
If however the problem is the sort of arithmetical numeracy I mentioned earlier, which should be well developed by the start of senior school, then he's on a hiding to nothing. The problem is at 6-8 not 16-18.
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