[jambutty]

Employers and even universities have complained about young people joining them and they couldn’t do simple arithmetic or basic spelling for that matter and could not compose a simple letter.

When I left Primary school in the late forties I and my class mates were competent at arithmetic. We had to contend with the imperial counting and measuring system not the easy metric system that we have today. Pounds, shillings and pence where 12 pence equalled one shilling and 20 shillings equalled one pound with the Guinea (1 pound & 1 shilling) thrown in for good measure. Then there were farthings (4 to a penny), halfpennies (2 to a penny), tanners (6 pence), bobs (1 shilling), florins (2 shillings), half crowns (2 shillings and 6 pence), crowns (5 shillings). In those days the US dollar was worth 5 shillings so we called the crown a dollar and half a crown half a dollar.

There were inches, feet, yards, rods, poles, perches, chains, furlongs, miles and leagues and for measuring depth there were fathoms. OK! So we never used rods, poles, perches or chains, but we still had to learn them. 12 inches equalled 1 foot, 3 feet equalled 1 yard, 1760 yards equalled 1 mile and there were 8 miles to a league. A furlong was 220 yards and a chain 22 yards. We only knew about chains because that is the length of a cricket pitch. There are 6 feet to a fathom.

We had to learn the multiplication tables up to and including the 12 times table off by heart and did so BEFORE joining a Secondary school of some sort. We were even doing long division and multiplication by then too.

Today’s Metric system is so easy that there can be no excuse for an eleven year old not being competent with numbers. Why they are not has to be down to – in no particular order – the education system, the teachers, the pupils and the parents.

We did have a calculator of a sort called Log Tables and Slide Rule and we used them both but not until we had mastered not just arithmetic but also mental arithmetic too. There is nothing wrong with kids using calculators but they should first learn the basics thoroughly. It is easy to hit the wrong key on a calculator without realising it, but when I do and look at the answer I know instinctively that something is wrong.