A “can’t do” attitude to maths is reported to have cost the economy £9 billion. And it will get worse, thanks to 
the downgraded GCSE syllabus for maths where fewer pupils will be able to achieve good grades. I described it as “an education blackhole” in this post last month.
One reason that kids don’t connect with maths is because they don’t think they need to, that it will not be important in their lives as they can get all their answers on a calculator. I’ve been asked by my sons what is the point in learning algebra and geometry. They feel it is pointless. They don’t appreciate being able to exercise their brain cells in a different way, the joy of stepping out of their comfort zone and discovering that “eureka” moment.
What concerns me even more is the shortage of scientists in the UK, an issue I have highlighted several times. And our government is approaching this by promoting science in schools to take up a future career as a lighting expert at music festivals and Formula One engineers – more on this here. We have failed to focus enough on supporting our scientists with research to avoid a brain drain.
Every day now – and for the foreseeable future – we will read about food shortages, bio fuels, nuclear power, drought stress, climate change and tribal wars started by displaced communities in search of food and water.
We don’t have the answers to any of these major problems. All the best brains in the world cannot find a solution to them. It will take years of study and research to have proven technologies to overcome them. Some controversial questions will never be answered or consensually agreed. We need more scientists to be equipped with new skills to help face these daunting challenges.
In the meantime, a United Nation’s summit on resolving the world’s food crisis is being held in Rome. It’s farcical that Mugabe is there as Zimbabwe has an inflation rate topping 100,000%, and even subsided grains are unaffordable for many.
According to Oxfam, 80 percent of Zimbabwe’s population now lives on less than $1 a day, thanks to Mugabe’s policies, and lacks access to basic foods and clean water. This year’s harvest was poor, and Zimbabweans are fleeing their country in large numbers. Meanwhile, Mugabe is notorious for using food aid as a political weapon, distributing it only to those who reliably vote for him.
With many countries imposing export bans on food, it is clear that food has become a political weapon of the future.
The lack of linguists in Britain is lamentable, too.
On Mugabe, it is disgusting that he was let anywhere near that summit.
Extraordinary that John Major gave Mugabe an honorary knighthood
Why is Mugabe at this summit? Everyone knows he lost the election.
Food has always been a political weapon, it’s just that in the West we’re fortunate…
Get yourself an allotment now – I reckon mine saves me twenty quid a week allsummer.. also its GM and pesticide free.
Well put, Ellee. It most certainly is.
Every day lately, I’ve had proof that maths were good for me, especially in geometry. I wish I could go back in time and really absorb it. It wasn’t my strength then, but if I’d known the daily applications for it, I might have understood it better.
This is frightening as every optimist says “Don’t worry about the future, science will sort it out.”
What about defence capability too ?
Nu Lab are bloody dangerous.
The prospect of water wars seems inevitable in the not too distant future. Add food conflicts and things look really bleak.
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[…] of their hunger. Centuries later, food riots are still raging today in parts of the world, and food today is a political weapon. This story shows a map of the world where food riots have happened […]