To finally believe Sunak is delusional?

[Return2thebasic]

When the whole country is turned up side down with COL crisis and the untenable NHS health system, the biggest policy reported so far is about all kids studying maths up to 18 years old? I just want to ask, wtf???

I'm all for education and I don't think it's a bad idea on its own. But it just sounds so out of touch, with the shortage of teachers, with the decades of underfunded schools along side with the much more imminent threat of feeding a family and survive. Any intention to take responsibility and sort that out? And the NHS?

I really liked him, thought he's well educated, probably reasonably intelligent and seemed truly care about people. But now I see him, as some described, a junior associate in the financial industry, and no more than that.

His carbinet announcement probably has had said it all - nothing original, just the same old story with nearly all the faces associated with the past few years of chaos.

I'm so so so disappointed and worry about our future and our children's. Am I being unreasonable?

YANBU

The countrys on its arse and thats the best he's got.

"his cabinet announcement"

So so so sad. I really need to get serious about stopping reading news... altogether.

I agree, his latest idea seems unbelievably out of touch with the real pressing issues that are facing our country.

I'm not saying his Maths idea is a bad one, but he doesn't appear to have the ability to prioritise and this should be towards the back of a long queue!

he doesn't appear to have the ability to prioritise and this should be towards the back of a long queue!, That's my thought too.

This reminded me about just a week ago he asked a homeless guy "Which business are you in?" Some sort of complete delusion which is just shockingly out of touch.

But that’s not all he’s going to talk about is it? He’s setting out his key issues - of which numerical literacy is one.

The papers have picked up on what they consider to be the least urgent one to get people frothing over so they pay less attention to everything else he says…

@DrWhoNowww , I really hope you are right, as otherwise, I don't know what we would become in the next two years.

What is so genuinely upsetting and disappointing is that he is absolutely not the best this country has. I work with project manages, analysts etc people in industry all day long on 50 grand a year that would wipe the floor with him in terms of intellect. We literally do need the system rebooting to stop the likes of him reaching positions of power.

Fwiw I think it's a ridiculous policy. It looks reasonable on the surface and I understand the reasons for it, but I doubt whether it will work in reality. I hope there is an exception for students with dyscalculia.

^^. Absolutely this! Not a popular view but we need to pay our politicians and Prime Minister properly for one thing.

There’s absolutely no teachers to teach this mathematics until 18, due to the fact that we’ve had such a piss poor education system for the last 12 years

I really liked him, thought he's well educated, probably reasonably intelligent and seemed truly care about people

UABVU for this sentence alone.

It's got everybody talking about maths and not the NHS crisis or the strikes though hasn't it?

Absolutely Angeldelight81 I couldn't agree more. Where are these teachers going to be coming from?

I have long said that the prime minister and actually the cabinet need to be paid in line with Judges so that they are beyond reproach.

Weirdly, I find myself in full agreement with him re. maths, and he made this clear when he was running for PM, that he supported the replacement of the A-levels with something more akin to the International Baccalaureate, which I fully agree with (I come from a country with a system similar to the IB and it gives a more rounded education, than the A-levels which encourages specialisiation too young).

BUT his timing is demented. Education is the only infrastructure he HAS that isn't falling down around his ears incredibly publicly. He's not going to be able to use maths to distract from the strikes and the collapse of A&E services.

He seems like a reasonably sensible, educated person. I don't understand why he is so willfully mishandling this and risking killing off the maths proposals - something likely to get him excellent cross-bench support - in the process.

How intelligent is he really? Did he bother to speak to anyone in the dept for education about shortage of maths teachers?
Did he try to find understand the reasons why (experts in the field think) British kids underperform in maths?
As if it's as simple as making them study it till 18?! He probably thinks we can put kids in front of some software a few hours a week. No need for actual maths teachers.
I bet he knows some people who have a maths teaching software company...big contract coming. Waste of our money, no problems solved. He's a joke.

This would have been a nightmare for me as a teenager and I feel so sorry for those children who are not academically strong and maths is a living hell for them having to do another 2 years

Probably I had (still have) very low expectation really, after years of clown-run government? 😂

There is literally no point in having a highly educated population, and then combining it with a low wage population/ economy. Our biggest export at the moment as has been the case in Ireland for years is medics to Australia so is that what we’re going to become the training ground that people leave ?

I wonder if this ludicrous plan is so that when we’re all in poverty and frequenting food banks because of this pocket-lining set of self-indulgent twats, they can tell us all to get a job in finance.

Talk about fiddling while the country burns.

completely out of touch.

I don't think the basic idea is bad, but what's really needed is financial and statistical literacy - I don't imagine for a millisecond that this bunch of numpties has the faintest idea of how to implement it.

I think what people need is basic budgeting, tax, pensions, mortgages, how bank accounts work, some basic economics, how compound interest can make you happier (savings) or more miserable (credit card debt) etc.

A lot of that could be taught by non-maths teachers, and it could be totally done through case studies and real-life examples. Mind you some of the exam questions might be entertaining:

"Chloe's OnlyFans account currently has 4,000 followers.
For every 1,000 followers added, she will add 5% in advertising revenue and an average of £0.40/month/head in streaming revenue.
Assuming she currently makes £125/month in advertising revenue and that streaming revenue/month/head remains constant, how soon will she be able to buy a new Range Rover on 50% deposit and 50% 0%-finance deal?"

You would actually think it would be the last thing he wants is the population to become good at maths. We might all sit down with a piece of pan on the paperwork at where all the fucking money has gone

My DH, who I respect immensely for his logic thinking, once explained to me that learning maths is not all about numbers ( I didn't think maths is worth doing after a certain level and most of the things we learned are never used in real life). The training for analytical skill is the most valuable element. I do think he made a good point.

With the world we are exposed has been expanded ten folds because of internet and life has been made so complex thanks to the materialised world, to be able to think and navigate through all the confusion and chaos requires analytical mind. I don't think people have enough of that these days.

“Let them eat cake”, innit.