Educators remain wedded to the idea that young people must take exams, which often merely measure memory. Rishi Sunak is correct that students need financial literacy, but this should not translate into yet more mathematics instruction.
The Problem with Current Education
Former ministers often claim to know how to run the country after leaving office. Tony Blair criticises Keir Starmer, while Alan Milburn highlights that one in seven young people aged 16-24 with degrees are not in education, employment, or training—a rate double that of Ireland and triple that of the Netherlands. Meanwhile, Sunak complains that pupils are never taught financial literacy, leaving them unprepared for life outside school.
Sunak is clearly right, though one wonders what he did about it while in Downing Street. His proposed numeracy project aims to teach children how to handle money, a skill where Britons lag behind Germany and others. However, his sole obsession is that this requires mathematics taught until age 18.
Numeracy vs. Advanced Maths
For the vast majority, numeracy begins and ends with arithmetic. An army education officer once noted that school maths was so useless he had to teach soldiers addition and subtraction through darts and carpentry. Arithmetic is indeed needed for handling money, forming the foundation for percentages, proportions, and interest rates. Children should learn to measure inflation, judge risk, and detect scams. But algebra, calculus, and quadratic equations are for specialists—not the general populace.
Where Sunak should be firm is in demanding that financial study be compulsory. Handling money—and thus handling the world of work—should not be relegated to an extracurricular activity, beneath the dignity of professional teachers. Today's schools cannot continue in the monastic tradition of elite academies, priding themselves on detachment from the outside world.
The Flawed Examination System
GCSEs, A-levels, degrees, and doctorates remain sacred, passed down like ancient texts. They are dispensed over three terms covering little more than half a year. Their custodians are obsessed with examinations that measure little beyond memory. Questioning their utility is seen as insulting their prestige.
Something is clearly wrong with the content of British education. Both Milburn and Sunak point out that schools and universities produce leavers hopelessly unprepared for the world of work. The Starmer government's fiscal and regulatory barriers to startups and temporary jobs have not helped, though recent moves to expand apprenticeships are welcome. But the overall lack of transitional assistance is longstanding. Prisoners receive more help finding a job than school leavers. Beyond the school gates, it is a wilderness.
Core Life Skills
What Sunak wants should not be extracurricular but core and compulsory, like other crucial subjects. Schools should teach the three Rs: reading, writing, and arithmetic. There are also specialist skills for minority occupations as pupils progress through a selective system. But three fundamental areas are essential for survival and prosperity in modern society.
- Health and Wellbeing: How to look after body and mind, handle health, and react to social media.
- Community and Citizenship: How to behave as community members, work in groups, respect the environment, vote, and obey the law.
- Financial and Work Skills: How to handle money and work, as Sunak insists. Financial ignorance is the fastest route to poverty. This is not about maths but about the glue binding individuals to the economy—incomes, taxes, insurance, and pensions.
These should be the three pillars of a liberal education that prepares young people for life, whether or not they attend college or university. They need constant updating. When I started as an education correspondent, I attended many school conferences, yet I cannot recall one where reform of the national curriculum was discussed. It was taken as given, handed down from antiquity.
There have been some reforms, such as a GCSE in health and social care. But the primacy of an essentially academic education remains entrenched. Time spent drilling maths into children for whom it is useless is mindless and cruel. The same used to apply to Latin and foreign languages. Utility—preparedness for life—should be the essence of education. Sciences and humanities may constitute a rounded education, but above them should tower the three pillars of utility.
I wonder how many education politicians will live to regret what they should have done back in 2026.
