Michael Gove backs our maths campaign
Michael Gove, the education secretary, will today throw his weight behind our campaign to improve financial literacy by boosting the number of students who study further maths at A-Level.
In a speech at the Royal Society on the importance of maths in the curriculum, Gove will back our call for City workers and firms to donate to FMSP, a charitable project that supports the teaching of further maths in schools and colleges.
The Further Maths Support Programme (FMSP) trains teachers in state schools to deliver the advanced maths A-Level qualification and provides tuition directly to students.
Gove will say: “I strongly welcome City A.M.’s campaign for the City to donate to the Further Maths Support Programme.”
“Their budget last year was a paltry £1.5m – small change for the City – but with this tiny budget they have had enormous success.”
Gove will call on City institutions to donate some of their profits to FMSP, making it financially secure and less “dependent of the temporary affection of politicians”.
Since its launch in 2005, FMSP has managed to double the number of students studying further maths at A-Level from 5,627 to 11,312.
However, just one in seven students studying for a maths A-Level also picks further maths, even though it is often demanded by the top university mathematics departments such as Cambridge, Oxford, Warwick and Durham.
With more funds, the FMSP would be able to boost the number of opportunities for state school pupils to study A-Level further maths while training even more teachers to be able to deliver the qualification.
Charlie Stripp, chief executive of Mathematics in Education and Industry – the charity that runs FMSP – said people with “highly developed maths skills” were essential to the success of the City, as well as Britain’s manufacturing and technology industries.
Meanwhile, Gove will say that schools are not producing “anywhere near enough mathematically educated people for universities and businesses”.
He will add: “Modern science and technology are built on a foundation of mathematically educated people. However, half of our children leave school without even a ‘C’ in GCSE maths, only one in ten does A-Level maths.
“We are almost unique among advanced countries in not expecting pupils to continue with maths between 16 and 18 – we must change path.”
He will pledge to expand training for maths teachers and call on the maths and science communities to work with universities and businesses to develop a range of new non-A-Level courses that focus on statistics, probability and risk.
Gove will also argue that a lack of statistical skills meant most of society – including politicians – were unable to follow the debates around the causes of the 2008 financial crisis.