Why Should Mathematics be Studied Beyond Age 16?

I recently applied for a job ¹ and in preparation for the interview I was told that I would be 'invited to talk for 5 minutes on why mathematics should be studied after GCSE'. I thought that I'd adapt the result into a blog post. So here it is:

MATHS by Klara CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Why should mathematics be studied after GCSE?

Given five minutes to talk about why mathematics should be studied after GCSE I decided, drawing from my own experience as both a fan and teacher of mathematics as well as some recent reading on the matter ⁵, to present five different yet interrelated reasons.

Five reasons in five minutes:

1. It's important for work

Far from only being useful for those undertaking roles explicitly labeled as "STEM" focused, employers in all sectors need workers with strong mathematical skills which go beyond merely being numerate, speedy calculators. Ubiquitous use of information technology has not ended the need for mathematically capable employees, but has changed the nature of the skills required: the ability to perform calculations is not so important as understanding which calculations may be required in the first place; interpreting their results; making and justifying decisions based upon them; and clearly communicating the reasons for these decisions to others.

2. It's important for its own sake

Mathematics is a universal language and a logical framework that has been developed and refined over thousands of years for a breadth of purposes to become a natural tool for learning and understanding more about the universe, and for analysing and solving problems. Working to master these tools necessarily involves the development of logical reasoning and critical thinking skills, and its power for abstraction allows us to apply what we learn on one theme to seemingly unrelated others.

3. It's important for a 'knowledge economy'

Mathematics is key to the development of a modern society that is highly skilled, flexible and adaptable. Understanding, manipulating and improving the increasingly complex structures governing the modern world can only be achieved through deeper mathematical understanding. Key academic fields that underpin all areas of work, such as computer science and economics, are themselves mathematical subdisciplines that have budded off and taken root, growing too large not to be treated as disciplines in their own right.

4. It's important for STEM

The themes represented by the first three letters of "STEM" - Science, Technology and Engineering - are underpinned by the fourth, with mathematics providing the logical, abstract structure through which they are first understood and then advanced. A steady supply of mathematically literate people, then, is crucial for meeting aspirations of innovation and productivity in these sectors. Training in specific skills may not be as fruitful as developing more general mathematical understanding and confidence given its combined key features of logic and abstraction weighed against the uncertain future requirements of the jobs market.

5. It's important for participation in society

Given everything above, it is clear that an individual with a deeper and broader set of mathematical skills is at an advantage with regards to opportunities to succeed and achieve compared to someone with shallower and narrower mathematical understanding. This is not limited to professional success and academic achievement, but extends to navigating the perilous seas of life admin, from insurance and banking to utilities and grocery shopping. Whilst many people can do these tasks 'just fine', doing them better - more efficiently, for example - can pay dividends in terms of improved quality of life and mental wellbeing. In addition, better understanding of statistics and other forms of mathematics presented by the media and politicians may have similar benefits for individuals whilst prompting higher standards from those using numerical evidence to support an argument as the mathematical understanding of media consumers improves generally.

A bonus sixth reason may be considered to surround and bind these other five together:

6. It's important for ourselves

By 'ourselves' I mean the 'me', 'you' and 'us' beyond mere workers, learners, citizens or consumers. I mean the rounded individuals that encompass all of those along with the infinities of uncharacterisable things in between.

Studying mathematics, when enjoyable and undertaken with appropriate motivation and a mind open to the experience can be a pleasurable and meaningful experience for its own sake. The utility of mathematics is regularly at the root of discussions - and arguments - regarding its study, often to the ignorance and detriment of its enjoyability. Where there is discussion around extending the study of mathematics for more people beyond the current compulsory age it may be worth considering focusing, for some learners, on the task of opening their minds to its recreational value rather than its mere academic or professional utility.

The study of maths beyond age 16, then, has the potential to enrich all aspects of an individual's life by the provision of tools which have evolved for the very purpose of understanding our world that little bit better. Collectively, a society composed of individuals comfortably operating within a mathematical framework can develop itself in directions informed by logical and critical thought, feeding back into improving the quality of life and wellbeing of its members.

If you have any comments or questions please feel free to post them in the comments, or start a conversation with me on Twitter, LinkedIn or Mastodon, but please read the background commentary below first!

Some background:

It is currently compulsory for all students attending school in the UK to study mathematics from the start of primary school until the end of the school year in which they turn 16 (i.e. once they've finished their GCSEs). This is actually pretty unusual: most countries, including the majority of OECD members, have some form of compulsory mathematical education for school attenders up to the age of 18.

At the beginning of 2023, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced his ambition to bring us more in-line with these other countries an ensure "that all school pupils in England study some form of maths to the age of 18." Of course, this caused uproar with all sorts of maths-haters like Simon Pegg leaping in front of their cameras to rant incoherently about how awful maths is ². There are some excellent reasons why this either shouldn't or cannot happen ³, but most of the louder, more vocal celebrities who weighed in managed to miss all of them. I'm not going to go into these in any depth, but a compounding factor in the furore was the large number of people seemed to interpret study some sort of maths to the age of 18 as force everyone to do A-level maths. I can understand how some people might acquire this misconception as a knee-jerk reaction, but not how so many have managed to retain it after actually thinking ⁴.

For the record, I'm not entirely convinced (yet) that mathematics should be a compulsory part of every student's study beyond the age of 16. I do, however, believe wholeheartedly that everyone should study mathematics beyond the age of 16.

Footnotes

1.  No, I didn't get it, but the feedback was very constructive.
2. There seems to be a very vocal contingent of folk who want people to study more of the arts and think that the best way to do that is to whine about how much they hate maths.
3. That there aren't enough maths teachers to teach what's already on the curriculum, that people who currently are maths teachers are leaving unprecedentedly fast, and that maths teacher recruitment is failing to meet targets by quite some distance, for example.
4. It's hard to escape the conclusion that anybody still using this line hasn't really done all that much of the thinking bit.
5. Including Making Mathematics Count: The report of Professor Adrian Smith’s Inquiry into Post-14 Mathematics Education (2004) and What Should Schools Teach (2021), from UCL Press.