Laura Kounine and Elizabeth Truss: The lost mathematicians

Laura Kounine and Elizabeth Truss, Reform’s Education Researcher and Deputy Director, highlight the cost to the country of our desperate lack of mathematicians - as documented in their new report.

It is socially acceptable, cool even, to claim that you are “no good at maths” whereas people would be ashamed to admit they couldn’t read. This culture is endemic in Britain, pervading politics and the media. Years of reduction in examination standards and teaching to the test from the early 1980s onwards has served to increase the perception that maths is boring, difficult and geeky. The economic results are now emerging. Fifty percent of UK employers are dissatisfied with the basic numeracy of school leavers.  There is also a massive gap being created in high level mathematics, with City firms disproportionately recruiting non-UK graduates. This, as Michael Gove has recognised, has significant implications for the wider economy: mathematics is vital for economic growth. 

The modern economy is a “maths economy” in which mathematical skills drive value in industries from energy to financial services. The new “Masters of the Universe” in the City are no longer traders doing deals; they are the “power mathematicians” who model future trends. Yet, despite this country’s strong record of producing Nobel prizewinners and Fields medalists, the UK is under threat from new competitors entering this market.

Elizabeth Truss and Lucy Parsons: Moving from a "why bother" to a "can do" economy

Elizabeth Truss is Deputy Director at Reform and Lucy Parsons is Economics Researcher at Reform. Reform’s full report “Shifting the unequal state: from public apathy to personal capability” is available here.

There is much political concern about the parlous state of Britain’s social mobility. However little acknowledged is the role successive governments have had in enforcing and embedding the divide, through public spending programmes and a failure to enact effective education reform.

Reform’s latest report finds that while the UK is no longer the “sick man” of Europe, it could be called Europe’s “divided society” and lays significant blame at the doors of government.

The social costs of low social mobility and persistent poverty have been well covered. Less so the economic cost of wasted talent that afflicts the UK’s economy. Reform’s research suggests that there is an economic cost of up to £1,300 per household or £32bn, an amount that dwarfs the worst impact of removal of the 10p tax rate which is £232 per year. This is the cost of the UK population having skills levels that are worse than key competitor nations, namely France, Germany and the US.

Elizabeth Truss: The new media politics revolution

Elizabeth Truss, a councillor in Greenwich and Deputy Director of Reform, looks at the some of the ways new media is already changing our way of life.

In their book Wikinomics, Dan Tapscott and Anthony Williams described “a new age of participation and mass collaboration… endangering the future of hierarchies as a mode of organizational structure”. In this new world individuals can directly select and contract with large organisations, leaders are spurred on by new collaborative technology, businesses are delayering and small enterprise is thriving.

Businesses are using open sourcing to improve the quality of their work. Expert individuals are able to put forward views and ideas, and hence have become used to influencing decisions in many different areas of their lives. The technological change has been accompanied by a greater capability of people to take decisions themselves and direct their future.

The generation brought up in the internet age has always assumed that they have this level of interaction, voice and influence. Their communication is characterised by open and constant self expression. Distinction between generations and authority are blurred; on-line you stand or fall by your latest pronouncement.

Elizabeth Truss and Laura Kounine: The academies programme should be deepened and widened

Elizabeth Truss is Reform’s Deputy Director and Laura Kounine is Reform’s Education and Crime Research Officer.

The main political parties have both spoken of their support for the academies programme as though it is the litmus test of educational reform.  A new report published by the independent think tank Reform argues that the current academies programme is just the first step in education reform – it should be deepened and widened in order to facilitate improvement and progress in all schools across the country.   

Richard Tice, Chairman of Governors at Northampton Academy and author of the report, shows that much greater freedom of management has transformed the school leadership’s ability and willingness to take decisions.  Specific improvements have included changes to the teaching and management staff and several changes to discipline policy including a new off-site centre for excluded pupils.   

As a result a badly underperforming school is quickly improving, though major challenges remain.  GCSE performance has significantly improved since the new management has taken over, truancy has fallen by a third, teaching absenteeism is much reduced and the school receives three applications for every place.  The school has strengthened ties with parents and other local schools

Elizabeth Truss: A new state

Elizabeth Truss is the Deputy Director of Reform.

Change seems to be in the air this year. In the US Presidential election we are told about epic struggles for control between the old and new generations. And from a seemingly benign economic environment in Britain, we are facing serious economic challenges. Just of course when the money is running out and the last of the Government’s spending increases hits the public sector.

The uncertainty which everyone is feeling from the British high street shopper to Hillary Clinton, I believe is reflective of genuine underlying change. That change is the coming of age of the internet, not least demonstrated by ConservativeHome. The internet’s influence has spread to every office, school and home. It is altering the way we live, the way we interrelate and our perceptions of the world.

Communication where leaders made decisions, communicated and then were lauded or rejected is being replaced by the continual iteration of thousands of individual transactions. The huge increase in available information has empowered the individual to make choices and direct their lives to a much greater extent. It has created alternative networks and increased horizontal communication, in many cases removing the role of intermediaries and middle management.

Big Government is out of step with this trend and unreconstituted public services will find it harder and harder to deliver people’s expectations. If the economy was difficult to plan and manage in the 1970’s – it is impossible now with the degree engagement required in a modern organisation. In spite of the money that has been pumped in, Britain’s public services are still working in a very old command and control style, characterised by targets, edicts and vast bureaucracies.