Poor numeracy 'blights the economy and ruins lives'

[Atheist-Lite]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-17224600

Poor numeracy 'blights the economy and ruins lives'

Poor numeracy is blighting Britain's economic performance and ruining lives, says a new charity launched to champion better maths skills.

The group, National Numeracy, says millions of people struggle to understand a payslip or a train timetable, or pay a household bill.

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

A government spokeswoman said poor numeracy was a national scandal.

The new organisation quotes from research which suggest that weak maths skills are linked with an array of poor life outcomes such as prison, unemployment, exclusion from school, poverty and long-term illness.

'British disease'

It also wants to challenge a mindset which views poor numeracy as a "badge of honour", promising to name and shame public figures who boast of being bad at maths.

(continued)

Like the comments?

"" Half the population appears to be functionally innumerate with 'government figures show almost half the working population of England have only primary school maths skills' and half the population has a IQ below a hundred. I'm not claiming causality here but there may be a powerful link between these two astounding figures? So....why should half the population be blighted by a below average IQ? ""

[Audley Strange]

13 free years of school and the fuckers can't read or write? I say at that point let's just harvest the useless eaters organs. If 50% are functionally innumerate and about 35% of adults are functionally illiterate, I think it's time to not bother wasting the time and money in educating the indolent. 50%? Really what this evinces is that our public school system has failed. Time to change it.

How about making people pay for anything other than the first three years of primary education (by which point if your kid can't read or write and is nothing mentally or physically wrong with it YOU are not trying) if they do not evince basic numeracy and literacy skills.

Other than that we close off parks and let those who are so thick they don't care about their children's education, and dump them in their til we can sign them up as bullet fodder.

The more tolerant part of me thinks that perhaps in the desperate bid not to hurt kids feelings about how dumb they are we've made education something that even the lowest common denominator can feel good about passing. They're still thick as brick soup.

You know what it reminds me of? Ever seen a talent show where the "talent" is so utterly appalling as to almost be objectively talentless, but they think they are because their family and friends encouraged them rather than tell them they're shit and wasting their own and everyone's time?

THAT is what I feel we're turning our education system into. Unfortunately Reality is a bigger more tactless cunt than either Simon Cowell or I?

AND who are they going to blame and resent for this?

We don't sort it out rapidly by the time we're all pensioners (except pensioner, chuck him a few action men and tell him WW2 started back up, that'll keep him happy) we'll be lucky if they aren't hunting us down like rabid foxes.

[Clinton Huxley]

Mathematics? Fashionable nonsense. They couldn't count at Agincourt and just as bloody well!

[Atheist-Lite]

Let's face it. Some are less evolved than others. This will not change. The nazi intellectuals tried to smarten people up and all they got was hassle for their trouble. What we need to do is wait out the coming dark age and start again with a new brighter civilization when this one falls apart through its own idiocy?

[Audley Strange]

Let's face it. Some are less evolved than others. This will not change. The nazi intellectuals tried to smarten people up and all they got was hassle for their trouble. What we need to do is wait out the coming dark age and start again with a new brighter civilization when this one falls apart through its own idiocy?

I agree somewhat, though I'd not say less evolved, rather unsuccessful in social rather than environmental adaptation.

Yes but the Nazi intellectuals were fucking insane.

We are already in a dark age, when half the population are about as smart as dogs.

[Clinton Huxley]

There's plenty of people from any previous period in history who would have sold their children to live in our "Dark Age"....

[MrJonno]

There's plenty of people from any previous period in history who would have sold their children to live in our "Dark Age"....

And there are few libertarians who would sell their children to go back to the Dark ages

[Clinton Huxley]

There's plenty of people from any previous period in history who would have sold their children to live in our "Dark Age"....

And there are few libertarians who would sell their children to go back to the Dark ages

sounds like a fair swap...

[Rum]

And then there are the people who see a dark age in every age because they refuse to acknowledge that humanity is capable of amazing things.

[MrJonno]

Generally life has never been better, go back 20 years it was quite shit, go back 40 years it was very shit go back 400 years it was so shit shit hadnt been invented and all you had was libertarians and dragons

Going forward , in 20 years time life will be better and people will look back to 2012 and think life was shit then (except libertarians)

[Atheist-Lite]

It is all a matter of perspective and in the round given enough time....we are all the same. Intelligence might give you a brief feeling of edge for a short while but death is the great equaliser in lifes pointless race.

[Clinton Huxley]

Want some dressing with that word salad?

[Feck]

If only more people could do Maths then they would be able to get on a job opportunity scheme work at a supermarket AND be able to calculate just how deeply they were in the financial shit on £53 a week .

[Audley Strange]

If only more people could do Maths then they would be able to get on a job opportunity scheme work at a supermarket AND be able to calculate just how deeply they were in the financial shit on £53 a week .

Well if they could count they'd not likely be in as much financial shit as someone who couldn't. Like the waste of skin with her 6 brats in the bank this morning demanding that the bank staff send her out another giro because her last one got swallowed up by her overdraft.

Yeah humans are aaammmaaaaaazing.

My arse. Why is it not considered reasonable to generalise negatively, yet you generalise positively and no one minds that. We have 7 billion people on this planet, not one percent of them are ever going to do anything other than consume multiply and whine.

[Clinton Huxley]

My arse. Why is it not considered reasonable to generalise negatively, yet you generalise positively and no one minds that. We have 7 billion people on this planet, not one percent of them are ever going to do anything other than consume multiply and whine.

Quit whining.