WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH MATHEMATICS IN THIS DFQ?

There may be a political aspect to the reporting of this, but the OECD is apparently reporting that the children of the poorest factory workers in China perform better in maths than children of doctors and lawyers in this DFQ!

I am slightly suspicious of this report because it is being reported by The Daily Telegraph, which is notoriously Tory, and thus supports Gove. However this report reinforces the report by the House of Lords STEM Committee of 2012 and the report of Jerrim and Choi last year which both suggested that the DFQ was lagging internationally in maths.

Having discussed this with mathematics teachers in several schools now, I believe that there are several factors influencing this:
1. the race to the bottom by several qualifications boards making their qualifications easier by the year to attract more entrants and thus more fees;
2. current trendy methods of entertaining children may have some influence;
3. time being reassigned to other parts of the curriculum, such as global citizenship;
4. lack of discipline in school and in society in general.

Gove is addressing 3 of these factors, the race to the bottom, discipline, and trendy methods of entertaining/teaching. He has also had a go at The Blob, but he has not removed the global citizenship stuff from the curriculum.

But is he addressing these enough?

And can he address the issue of discipline when MPs and our global ruling elite are either in the papers filling their troughs or telling pork pies to drag us into wars?

So what the F is happening with mathematics in this DFQ?

Well, if you ask me, I believe that there is an attempt to halt scientific progress, and that only children from the global ruling elite will be able to finance their children to have any kind of education worthy of being called an education, and that that education should be used to increase the wealth gap between the rich and poor through highly complex financial mathematics which if resulting in losses will lead to massive bailouts. There is also the prophecy of Dr Richard Day that children would spend more time at school but learn little.