One-third of students reach 16 without a good pass in maths. As Simon Jenkins points out, most will endure a cycle of unsuccessful post-16 resits (GCSEs harm our young people. Ministers should have the guts to abolish them – and start again, 20 March). But it is wrong to call maths obsolete – financial literacy is impossible without a solid foundation in maths, to say nothing of the skills needed in a tech-driven economy.
Rather than abandoning GCSE maths, we need to do more to support the so-called “forgotten third”. Improving early secondary education in the subject and introducing a short course GCSE focusing on the fundamentals would be a good start. Jenkins’ suggestion of abolishing GCSEs is neither desirable nor practical. Enacting such a change would eat up capacity in a system with little to spare.
