Numeracy skills remain the key to a better life | Opinion - City A.M.

Fiona McDonnell, Director of Customer Retail at Amazon UK explains, As a parent under lockdown, I count myself among the many thousands of people who have added ‘home schooling’ to their list of responsibilities at home, at least temporarily. I take my hat off to teachers who do this normally. 

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Reflecting on the way we educate children and engage them in a subject like numeracy, many more of us will have become aware of the challenges involved in building and maintaining core skills. These are skills which set the next generation on a path into the future world of work.

But as we celebrate National Numeracy Day, I was reminded of some shocking statistics about the reality of numeracy in the UK.

Independent charity National Numeracy reported that low numeracy costs the economy around £3.2bn per year, nearly half of all working-age adults have the numeracy level of a primary school child, and three quarters of working adults would struggle to pass a maths GCSE.

That represents a serious challenge for both employers and employees alike – especially when considering the extent to which numeracy underpins the technology that shapes the modern world...

At the same time, maths plays a role in all our everyday lives. You might be measuring the front room for a new sofa, budgeting the weekly food shop or splitting the bill over dinner. Good numeracy also helps us find the best deals on financial products like mortgages, business loans and insurance.

So to build a strong workforce of numeracy-empowered people, we all need to take action both collectively and individually.  
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Source: City A.M.