Andy Pacer
Established Member
If we ever see then. Is Rishi still "missing in action"?
-
Our new ticketing site is now live! Using either this or the original site (both powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Rishi Sunak and the Conservative Party.
- Thread starter Cowley
- Start date
- Status
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
Sorry, it had to be done.
[A picture of Austin Powers "Dr Evil", little finger to his lips, with the caption "One Million Dollars"]
Oh no, Rishi has reappeared and come up with a typical politician's wheeze intended to generate positive headlines about making studying mathematics compulsory (or somesuch) until the age of 18.
Now, I was good at mathematics up to that age, but I didn't learn anything which I would call "useful" in real life after 16 if not before. I mean, differential and integral calculus is interesting and all that, but it doesn't help me with my electricity bills or in Sainsbury's.
Maybe what he's saying is that the standard of teaching mathematics is so poor today that it's necessary to do it for longer than used to be the case? I don't really think that is true. Maybe he's saying that some pupils are so dim that they need to be taught the same thing over and over again until it sinks in?
At the end I'm out of touch and not in a position to form a real opinion - I started a mathematics degree at university so I didn't need help with the subject much.
It just seems to me like an attempt to divert attention away from bigger problems which are of the government's own causing and which the government is capable of resolving onto some nice pie-in-the-sky nonsense which doesn't actually mean anything.
Now, I was good at mathematics up to that age, but I didn't learn anything which I would call "useful" in real life after 16 if not before. I mean, differential and integral calculus is interesting and all that, but it doesn't help me with my electricity bills or in Sainsbury's.
Maybe what he's saying is that the standard of teaching mathematics is so poor today that it's necessary to do it for longer than used to be the case? I don't really think that is true. Maybe he's saying that some pupils are so dim that they need to be taught the same thing over and over again until it sinks in?
At the end I'm out of touch and not in a position to form a real opinion - I started a mathematics degree at university so I didn't need help with the subject much.
It just seems to me like an attempt to divert attention away from bigger problems which are of the government's own causing and which the government is capable of resolving onto some nice pie-in-the-sky nonsense which doesn't actually mean anything.
Last edited:
edwin_m
Veteran Member
Seems to be struggling for some sort of long-term vision and (perhaps) all the factions of the party can agree on.
I do agree this doesn't look like a solution to the problem of poor numeracy in the UK (specifically England in this case), and I don't see how this could be fitted into the A-level years without taking something else out. Then again, a grip of basic maths seems to have been lacking in many of our politicians in recent years, even (especially) those that have received "elite" tuition at Oxford.
Anything you need in real life is taught before 16 anyway. You only really need GCSE maths for day to day things.
If Rishie want's a good achievement to shout about, why not get the trains running !
It's recognition of a real problem that's holding the UK economy back - the generally poor state of STEM skills - while providing no actual solution.
Pretty on-par for this government really.
Disclosure: Rishi went to the same college (Lincoln College) that I attended. The "elite" tuition was once described by a friend as being a "live-in correspondence course" in that you were taught nearly nothing - especially after the first year - but were supposed to hone your skills over the remaining two years by reading up and presenting to your tutor once a week. The tutor in question was an unsatisfied young(ish) man who made a point of going outside to watch the female students walk past in their academic dress, especially at examination times. Between a few of us we concluded that about one of the tutors at our college might be deserving of the title "normal" in real society.
Howardh
Established Member
- Joined
- 17 May 2011
- Messages
- 9,796
"We've been in power for twelve years and pupils have been educated in mathematics so badly under our government we've decided it's best to extend their learning by another two years at least. Vote For Us."
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
I think that's probably true of things like algebra and geometry, but I'm not sure it's true of statistics and probability. For example, in daily life and in the news, we often get bombarded with somewhat misleading statistics, that are very easy to recognise as misleading if you have some understanding of averages and sampling etc., but I don't think that information is taught in GCSE maths (Certainly, it wasn't back in the 1980s when I was at school).
dakta
Member
- Joined
- 18 Jun 2008
- Messages
- 577
a few years ago i took part in some courses which included maths and bought a few schoolbooks to help me refresh
wasnt a case of refreshing at all, what pupils are expected to learn is quite considerable as it is! Now I know how much i've needed since leaving school, I won't boast but my job does require a usable noggin, I can't help but feel (at risk of repeating myself from other threads like a broken record) this insistence on nailing people to education (in this case specifically maths) is going to fail people.
Life skills are so much more important
wasnt a case of refreshing at all, what pupils are expected to learn is quite considerable as it is! Now I know how much i've needed since leaving school, I won't boast but my job does require a usable noggin, I can't help but feel (at risk of repeating myself from other threads like a broken record) this insistence on nailing people to education (in this case specifically maths) is going to fail people.
Life skills are so much more important
It also looks like plans for "privatisation" of Channel 4 will be scrapped.
Good.
Even if you believe in some of the government's current plans, there are far more important ones than this ever was, which only looked like it was fuelled by spite by the dreadful Nadine Dorries.
From https://www.theguardian.com/politic...h-maths-up-to-18-strikes-nhs-uk-politics-live:
Good.
Even if you believe in some of the government's current plans, there are far more important ones than this ever was, which only looked like it was fuelled by spite by the dreadful Nadine Dorries.
From https://www.theguardian.com/politic...h-maths-up-to-18-strikes-nhs-uk-politics-live:
I consider myself a fairly smart guy but 'failed' GCSE Maths (or rather got a D), but then took it again as part of FE and got a C but there was a huge difference...they offered the course as a modular format so you essentially took several exams after concentrating on specific components of the course rather than everything thrown at you at once!
Graphing data taught in primary school, statistics & probability taught in early secondary school (KS3).
I did statistics & probability as part of my GCSE's in the 90's
If that is true (I haven't had any recent experience of school education), would a more sensible solution not be to teach these parts at GCSE level and move some of the less useful parts of the GCSE course to A-level?
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Agreed. C4 makes money and fulfils a valuable public service role at the same time, selling it off would just be vandalism. It's far less of a challenge than the monolithic Beeb.
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
I rather agree. I don't really have any objection to teaching more maths (other than, how much teaching time does it take? What's going to be removed from the syllabus to make way for it?), but this feels like a gimmick rather than a serious solution.
GS250
Member
- Joined
- 18 Mar 2019
- Messages
- 1,031
Its pretty clear Sunak is going to be absolute toast if he stays in charge. Totally unlikeable, seen by grassroots Tories as just another member of the banking status quo and now seen as totally out of touch with his comments on mathematics.
John Major the second.
John Major the second.
Teaching maths through to 18 is a ploy to distract from the NHS and economy. They don't have enough maths teachers right now. Nothing will be spent on training new maths teachers, so nothing will happen on the ground until a few years down the road, by which time it is someone else's problem.
If maths education was so important to the Conservative party, then they would make a point of educating ministers and MPs.
If maths education was so important to the Conservative party, then they would make a point of educating ministers and MPs.
The news story on the lunchtime news mentioned people leaving school with the maths skills of primary school. Perhaps the focus on those who don’t continue with maths currently will be essentially redoing GCSE until they can actually meet that standard?
I spend half my time at work tinkering with spreadsheets. That's where a lot of maths teaching needs to be !
And, yes, predictably Nadine Dorries is moaning on Twitter because her policy to "privatise" Channel 4 has been abandoned, and has generalised her complaining to say that the government has abandoned so many policies that voters won't vote Conservative at the next election.
Of course, I and many others think that voters won't vote Conservative at the next election because of what the government has done in recent years, and that Nadine's complaints are because she'll be remembered only as a minister who didn't actually achieve anything during her time in office - better to be remembered for something rather than nothing in her view I think.
Of course, I and many others think that voters won't vote Conservative at the next election because of what the government has done in recent years, and that Nadine's complaints are because she'll be remembered only as a minister who didn't actually achieve anything during her time in office - better to be remembered for something rather than nothing in her view I think.
brad465
Veteran Member
I thought this was already education policy? One of my brothers about 6-7 years ago didn't pass his English GCSE so had to retake it, and managed to go onto do an apprenticeship as planned, but I recall hearing at the time saying that those who don't pass English and/or Maths GCSE have to retake them until they pass or reach 18.
I am old enough to recogise a fad when I see one. I can remember the introduction of 'modern maths' around 1970, some of it was useful and some of it wasn't. What was particularly annoying was that at CSE (yes, it was that long ago), it tended to displace useful stuff such as 'money management', which included calculating income and other taxes, reading (the dialed) meters, savings and mortgages. You know, useful stuff that pupils might actually use in a year or two's time. Same thing happened when the National Curriculum came in, the syllabus was devised by people who see the inside of a classroom once or twice a year. If Sunak is so keen he needs to say why he wants maths teaching to be extended, what needs to be taught and why, and what he hopes to get out of it otherwise all that will happen is a load of disaffected 17 and 18 year olds. When I was at school I invariable finished 11th or 12th in my class, by the time I left I was winning prizes simply because I had dropped all the subjects I was useless at or found boring. I don't know whether this is quite so true now but when people used to say about 16 year old's 'pupils need maths' when it was actually 'pupils need arithmetic'.
By all means teach maths that is suitable to students according to their chosen direction of study or which might be useful but that is not how education tends to work.
I agree, particularly about stats Not sampling but we certainly did probability, averages and I'm reasonably sure of the Normal Distribution in the 70s but it was probably kicked out for something like topological equivalence or matrix multiplication!! I used to have some weighted dice as an aid!!
Yes, stuff like functions. All packages have them but they are underused. I regularly have to produce stats for an organisation I belong to. Just a load of Countifs with multiple conditions; I suspect the other members think I work it out each time. (But this is close to programming)
Bang on. Some subjects you can 'wing it' in the classroom (I know, I did) but maths is not one of them, What will happen is that the experienced teachers will be moved out of teaching the year 7's and 8's to teaching the 17-18 year old's. The younger pupils will be taught by someone for whom maths is their second or third subject, who would probably prefer teaching their main subject and may not put the effort in. Result will be that pupils are put off the subject just when they need enthusing.
By all means teach maths that is suitable to students according to their chosen direction of study or which might be useful but that is not how education tends to work.
War in Ukraine, energy and other costs soaring. Health service in crisis and everyone else on strike. Malevolent regimes across the world at the very least wishing us harm, and probably funding a lot of the problematic stuff going on. Working and non working people alike struggling to keep going.
Naturally, everyone's top priority is having better maths skills.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Naturally, everyone's top priority is having better maths skills.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Not sure I'd even go that far. It feels like he had no other plan beyond becoming PM. Clueless and totally out of touch.
I agree that improving the teaching of STEM subjects isn't going to fix any of the problems we're facing in present, but it is key to growing our economy over the next few decades.
Given the school leaving age was raised to eradicate youth unemployment caused by low wage migration, and given the repeated concerns raised now about labour shortages, surely what would help our economy is correcting the leaving age back to 16. Not force teaching advanced maths to 18 year olds. It's not going to create a country of "mathletes".
Rishi has promised five focus areas, but I don't think he's got much influence on their outcome, it's more about prediction and hope:
- Halving inflation by the end of the year - Liz Truss showed that the government doesn't really control this and, anyway, all the forecasters are predicting 5% CPI inflation (roughly) by year-end anyway.
- Growing the economy - almost impossible not to, but will it be by 0.1% or 4%?
- Ensuring our national debt is falling - this one he's more in control of, it means more "austerity" though.
- Cutting NHS waiting lists - I don't believe it, but we'll see. He could introduce a new waiting list for people to get on before getting on the real waiting list, or otherwise redefine what a "NHS waiting list" is, it's been done before.
- Passing new laws to stop small boats - passing laws is what they do, but I don't think they'll make much of a difference, and in any case I hope myself it doesn't because I disagree with the government's policies in this area anyway, but it'll appeal to the potential defectors to Reform UK.
He needs a sixth - get the blooming trains running properly. This is a higher priority to me and the economy than boats in the channel.
Last edited:
They had a plan for that - it involved nationalising all the operators so that they could cancel most of the trains with no comeback. It seems to have never occurred to them that there might be a downside to this, and that it might be even more unpopular than many-but-unreliable trains. Forward-thinking doesn't seem to be on the syllabus at Oxford though, so we are where we are...
Gloster
Veteran Member
Unfortunately, some of his aims are mutually impossible. Stopping the boats and cutting waiting lists require more investment in public service, but austerity means less money; cutting inflation and growing the economy are wild cards. (I must admit that I never did understand economics, but at least I can do maths.)
His biggest problem is keeping the support of his party. There is Boris plotting and he always has the support of his fans led by Mike and Nad Bonkers. The arch Brexiteers on the right want swingeing changes to get them to their golden uplands. Many rank-and-file members are not happy about having a PM that they didn’t choose. There are those COVID enquiries that he is going to have to delay or suppress because of the embarrassments they are likely to cause. And all the time Farage is standing outside the tent p*ssing in.
His biggest problem is keeping the support of his party. There is Boris plotting and he always has the support of his fans led by Mike and Nad Bonkers. The arch Brexiteers on the right want swingeing changes to get them to their golden uplands. Many rank-and-file members are not happy about having a PM that they didn’t choose. There are those COVID enquiries that he is going to have to delay or suppress because of the embarrassments they are likely to cause. And all the time Farage is standing outside the tent p*ssing in.
- Status