What Happened To Numeracy?

[ToraToraTora]

https://news.sky.com/story/all-pupils-in-england-to-study-maths-until-18-under-rishi-sunaks-new-mission-12779266
Not sure what the PM means by, pupils will study Maths until 18, I assume he means the ones that are still in education. Anyway I find it shocking that:
"Around eight million adults in England have the numeracy skills of primary school children, " - so what happened? Why are we so innumerate as a nation? I'm not talking about Calculus here just basic 'rithmetic.

[Togo]

35
____ X 100 = 20.9580838323%
167

Done without calculator. Pen & paper method. I.E. Old school.

[Togo]

5p.

[DTCwordfan]

By the way, this is a classic maths question....

[Arksided]

You don't have to be an advanced mathematician to figure out the guys a complete whole number.

[piggynose]

I wonder if things are still are still the same now as they were in 1980?
I ask, cuz my bruvva cudnt get into uni without a GCSE in eng lang+ maths.

[DTCwordfan]

used to be Latin O-level was essential for Oxbridge and also medical and law degrees. Maybe we wouldn't have half the idiots out there that we have today.

[andres]

The human brain is said to be shrinking .It's a well known fact that if you don't use it you'll lose it.

[Gromit]

// for an exercise in school we had to work out how many light years were in a Parsec. //

And has that been a constant help to you throughout your life ?

[ToraToraTora]

zebu 1729:"TTT //"numeracy skills intended to deal with unknowns?"-Of course//

Surely numeracy skills have to incorporate real life applications.

For example;
Student measures the length and width of a room and finds their respective values to be 4 metres and 3 metres. Multiplying these two values (4 x 3) gives 12 square metres or 12 m²

Subsequently student purchases carpet to cover floor of room.

Whereas topics such as algebra and trig, would require the student to transpose formula and/or have available a set of tables.

Does this not go outside the bounds of numeracy? ", no it's a very simple problem that an primary school kid could do.

[New Judge]

//I don't remember learning any of the above in school but that was around 35-40 years ago.//

No you wouldn’t, Tigger. But you were taught how to add up, subtract, multiply and divide, which of those was appropriate to what you wanted to do and which order to do them in.

//5p//

Correct. Method: deduct the “excess” from the total; divide what’s left by 2 and that’s the cost of the cheapest item. This is not really maths. The only arithmetic involved is taking £1 away from £1.10 and dividing 10 by 2. But it demonstrates perfectly that having a calculator will not solve everything. I solved such puzzles at primary school. We called them “problems.”

I have ‘A’ Level maths (‘B’ Grade). I passed when an ‘A’ Level was an ‘A’ Level (rather than now, where they appear to be 'O' Levels which take two years longer to gain than mine did). I have a better understanding of maths than my nephew who gained a 2:1 in Physics fifteen years ago. He has ‘A’ Level maths but his competence in the subject is not really much better than mine was at ‘O’ Level. But then I went to a grammar school and he didn’t (because there were none where he lived).

Many people I encounter are “astonished” that I can add up two or three sums of money in my head. They are only astonished because it has never occurred to them to learn how to do so and they’ve never been encouraged to try. But this isn’t maths. This is arithmetic and it is woefully lacking in large numbers of people under about sixty.

Mr Sunak could keep pupils in school learning Maths until they are 88. It would make no difference to their competence in the subject.

[ToraToraTora]

so will anyone have a go, without looking it up, how many ligth years in a Parsec?

[New Judge]

Something over 3 light years, IIRC, Tora (can't remember the exact figure). It's the distance at which an object will subtend an angle of 1 second when viewed from the Earth six months apart (or something like that).

[bobbinwales]

//And has that been a constant help to you throughout your life ?//
That sarcasm shows your missing the point gromit, maybe deliberate of course as its TTT your aiming it at,.... its the skill of analyticle thinking & breaking a problem down and applying arithmatic skills that them sort of problems helps with in real life/buisness

[10ClarionSt]

I always thought that 5 + 4 = 6 + 3 = 11. Nothing wrong with my sums!

[10ClarionSt]

Parsec is the diameter of the galaxy.

[10ClarionSt]

Correction: parsecs are used to calculate the diameter of the galaxy. Sorry about that error, TTT.

[ToraToraTora]

oh dear 10cs, I barely know where to start! Here's a clue, ParSec is a portmanteau.

[Tilly2]

This post has strayed from the original post.

[Atheist]

I think the original post was, as usual, a vehicle for something or other that was aimed at winkling out wokes, lefties, 5C's, Remoaners, Mensa failures.......
I'm probably wrong...

[10ClarionSt]

Thanks TTT, but you asked how many light years in a Parsec. I answered that, then you turned it into a grammatical thing. Tis either one, or t'other. Maybe both. I still stand by my reply at 20.08. And I commend it to the house! ;o)))