Rishi Sunak’s plan to make everyone learn maths til 18 is a winning formula – and here’s why, says TV legend Johnny Ball
RISHI said Britain has “an anti-maths mindset” and he’s absolutely right.
When I started writing and presenting Think Of A Number for the BBC in 1978, the best mathematicians were coming out of the Far East, especially Singapore.
When we explored why, we discovered they were using the maths tutor books that we in Britain had thrown out.
That’s why they were the best.
Over many years successive Education Secretaries in this country have reduced the maths curriculum.
We’ve made it all easier so pupils get better exam results.
The problem is, our maths curriculum is too dull.
If it’s drudgery, then kids won’t continue with something they don’t like.
It explains why we’re not as numerate as we should be as a nation, which is something the Prime Minister has correctly identified.
What he is getting at is that if you want any kind of career that requires using your brain, you need to be comfortable with maths.
You need to understand mathematics for building or designing anything.
You need it for decorating your home and working out how much paint and wallpaper is required.
If we taught the maths of gambling we wouldn’t have so many addicts, because you can see the odds aren’t in your favour.
Maths is so empowering and fundamental. Once you know it, it’s like being able to play chess, or a computer game, better than somebody else.
So in order to correct this anti-maths mindset we need to make the school curriculum more exciting.
When my TV show was on, I toured teacher training colleges saying: “Maths is one of the most exciting subjects there is. If you teach in an entertaining manner, students will study it.”
We need to rewrite the primary school maths books to make them fun and interesting.
I was a comedian for 17 years before presenting my maths programmes.
I used to paint a mental picture then turn it on its head – that’s comedy. And you teach maths the same way.
In my book Wonders Beyond Numbers I wrote a history of maths.
Ancient Greeks didn’t even give their numbers names. But they understood and taught geometry.
That’s what we need to concentrate on today. We’ve laboured statistics but machines do statistics brilliantly.
Teachers are taught maths badly in the first place. We need to change that and find more teachers.
I’m confident that things will slowly change. After all, maths is so much fun.