Just curious - dd went on an event today for yr 10 pupils interested in taking maths/further maths A level. She was telling me about it, and that in one of the sessions the opening qu. was along the lines of 'who knows what binary is'. She gave a minimal summary answer assuming this was a noddy-lets-get-this-started question, but it became apparant that many of the others there either hadn't heard of binary at all or didn't really understand what it was.
We talked about it, and she says that she thinks they haven't ever actually studied non-base 10 counting in school (she knows about it because 'well, y'know, it just is, isn't it').
I'm sure even in the depths of history 1970s we did non-base-10 counting in primary (at a minimal level - wiggling our toes to count in base 20 - that sort of thing). I also don't quite see how you understand place value if you don't do not-base-10-counting? (Or understand how your computer works if you don't know what binary is 
)