Kelvin Hopkins
Main Page: Kelvin Hopkins (Independent - Luton North)Department Debates - View all Kelvin Hopkins's debates with the Department for Education
(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
The Minister seems to agree that our primary problem in maths education is pre-GCSE, not post-GCSE. Does she therefore agree that it is unfair and unwise to press students to take mathematics beyond GCSE if their pre-GCSE performance is not sufficiently strong?
Elizabeth Truss
I agree that we have a lot to do to improve our performance in primary schools mathematics, but we have the lowest proportion of students studying maths from age 16 to 18 in the developed world. We need to do something about that, because it affects all kinds of things, such as the future supply of maths teachers and the number of people going into business and industry. What people in business tell me is that everything, from fashion to farming, now depends on having a good level of mathematics.