What is 20% of £2.00?
Four out of five people interviewed by the BBC got the wrong answer.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7457814.stm
How about 8,968 divided by 19? Surprisingly that proved slightly easier for some people.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7434021.stm
Britons are dunces when it comes to maths and often revel in their own inability - a state of affairs that could have long-term repercussions for the economy, researchers said on Wednesday.
A study conducted by Reform, an independent think-tank, has found that since the 1980s national examinations in maths, usually taken when students are 16, have become much simpler and now barely constitute a proper test of ability.
"Relevance has replaced rigour in the belief that this would make mathematics more accessible," Reform said in a 36-page report looking at the history of decline in the subject. "Many students are turned off by the narrow teaching which results, and this has led to a generation of 'lost mathematicians'."
A nation which has produced such noted mathematical thinkers as Isaac Newton, Bertrand Russell and Alan Turing, the father of the modern computer, now languishes far behind many developing countries when it comes to maths ability.
Whereas in places such as China and India it is "chic" and somewhat trendy to be geeky at maths, in Britain students and adults often announce with pride that they cannot do it.
(Reuters)
