Educators are still beholden to the idea of young people taking exams, which are often just a way of measuring memory. Rishi Sunak is right that students need financial literacy, but that should not mean yet more maths, argues Simon Jenkins. Education should prepare young people for dealing with practical matters such as insurance, pensions, and taxes, as well as technology and mental health.
The Problem with Exams and Maths
Former ministers often claim to know how to run the country after leaving office. Tony Blair criticizes Keir Starmer, Alan Milburn highlights that a million young people aged 16-24 are not in education, training, or employment, and Rishi Sunak complains that pupils are never taught financial literacy. Sunak is right, though we might wonder what he did about it while in power. His proposed numeracy project aims to teach children how to handle money, but he wrongly believes this requires mathematics taught until age 18.
For most people, numeracy begins and ends with arithmetic. An army education officer once said school maths was so useless he had to teach soldiers addition and subtraction through darts and carpentry. Arithmetic is 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 unnecessary for most.
Compulsory Financial Literacy
Sunak should insist that financial literacy be compulsory, not extracurricular. Handling money and the world of work should not be beneath the dignity of professional teachers. Schools cannot continue in the monastic tradition of elite academies, detached from the outside world. GCSEs, A-levels, degrees, and doctorates are treated as sacred, but they measure little beyond memory. Their utility is rarely questioned.
Something is clearly wrong with British education. Both Milburn and Sunak point out that schools and universities produce leavers unready for work. The government's fiscal and regulatory barriers to startups and temporary jobs have not helped, despite recent moves to expand apprenticeships. The lack of transitional assistance is long-standing; prisoners get more help finding jobs than school leavers.
The Three Pillars of a Liberal Education
Financial literacy should be core and compulsory, like reading, writing, and arithmetic. There are also specialist skills for minority occupations. But three fundamental areas are essential for surviving and prospering in modern society: looking after body and mind (health and social media), behaving as community members (working in groups, respecting the environment, voting, obeying law), and handling money and work (incomes, taxes, insurance, pensions). Financial ignorance is the fastest route to poverty.
These three pillars should form a liberal education that prepares young people for life, whether or not they attend college or university. They need constant updating. When I was an education correspondent, school conferences never discussed reforming the national curriculum; it was taken as given.
Reforms and Resistance
There have been some reforms, like a GCSE in health and social care, but the primacy of academic education remains entrenched. Drilling maths into children to whom it is useless is mindless and cruel. The same used to apply to Latin and foreign languages. Utility and preparedness for life should be the essence of education. Sciences and humanities may provide a rounded education, but the three pillars of utility should tower above them.
I wonder how many education politicians will regret not acting in 2026.
