Why the City must invest in maths
THE refined surroundings of the Royal Society are a world apart from the scenes of protest that will dominate Westminster today. Yet this is where Michael Gove, the education secretary, has come to announce his intention to put maths at the heart of the curriculum. His aides say he decided to press ahead with the launch – which has been in his diary for months – despite the impending strikes.
A huge picture of Albert Einstein, one of the Royal Society’s most famous fellows, hangs on the wall of the room where Gove gives his speech. One wonders what the great scientist would make of the standoff between the government and teaching unions.
One thing Einstein would surely approve of is Gove’s decision to throw his weight behind City A.M.’s campaign to boost financial literacy. Yesterday, he backed our call for the City to donate to a charity that promotes the teaching of further maths at A-Level – the kind of qualification that will be essential for any future Einsteins.
Shortly after his speech, he tells me that the City should donate to the Further Maths Support Programme out of a sense of “enlightened self interest”.
For society to “understand what happened in the banking crisis of 2008”, he says, “you need to have people that have a proper mathematical understanding”.
“We’re going to have debates over the next couple of years on everything from banking regulation to capital ratios through to the advisability of certain financial products people,” he says. “The more people who understand risk, probability and who have a sophisticated understanding of mathematics, then the more understanding and receptive that audience will be.”
He adds that a more financially literate society would “understand what the City does, and why it is so important”, perhaps helping to repair an image that has been decimated by constant banker bashing.
But the City should also donate to the further maths project because “its success critically depends” on the “best possible human capital”.
“We know that those who will be designing financial products in the future – marketing, selling and regulating them – are going to be people who are educated to a high level mathematically,” he says.
“By investing in this, what the City will be doing is investing in its own talent base for the future.”
That could help London stem the loss of business to Asia, he suggests. Asia’s growth as a financial services powerhouse and its decision to “invest heavily in mathematics and science” is “no accident”, he says.
Gove also argues that a more financially literate society might avoid a future crisis. The answer to preventing another meltdown is not the end of innovation, he says, but a better understanding of “sophisticated financial products” among directors, politicians and regulators.
In the run up to the 2008 meltdown, “there were financial institutions where the people leading them simply weren’t equipped to ask the right questions”, he says. That was also true for “some of the people involved in the political regulation of them”.
“The more people we have, whether it’s at director level or regulatory bodies – or in politics, the public and the commentariat – who are mathematically confident, the more likely we are to be able to evade these sorts of problems,” he says.
• To donate to the Further Maths Support Programme contact Charlie Stripp by email at charlie.stripp@mei.org.uk