The sound of chanting comes from a classroom: "Two and two are four... four and four are eight... eight and eight are sixteen..." Shaking his head, the passing storyteller stops to look at something far more interesting: a tiny inchwormA type of caterpillar. on a cluster of flowers. "Seems to me," he sings, "you'll stop and see how beautiful they are."

This is a scene from the classic film Hans Christian Andersen, about the great Danish teller of fairy tales. The message of the song is that some people are too obsessed with things like maths to notice the wonder of the world around them. Andersen might have said that Rishi SunakA British politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2022 to 2024. was one.

In a speech on Monday, Sunak said he wanted to make maths compulsoryNot optional. for all school pupils in England until they are 18.

He claimed that the country had an "anti-maths mindset" in which people made a joke of being bad at the subject. No one, he pointed out, would boast of being illiterateBeing unable to read or write. .

Poor numeracy, he said, was costing Britain "tens of billions a year". Those who suffer from it are twice as likely to be unemployed as those who do not.

There are other worrying statistics. Nearly a third of 16-year-olds in England fail maths GCSEThe national exams taken by 15 and 16-year-olds in parts of the UK. each year. Over eight million adults have maths skills worse than those expected of a nine-year-old in school.

But critics wonder how Sunak will find teachers for the extra classes. There is already a shortage of them, and targets for recruiting new ones have not been met for over 10 years.¹

There are other objections. Stephen Follows, a film data analyst, says² that making maths compulsory till 18 "risks stifling the passions and interests of individual students".

Journalist Rebecca Reid writes that education should be about the pure joy of learning - and adds that not all students enjoy the same things.

Yes: We live in a data-driven world in which being able to crunch numbers is a key skill. Most of the best-paid jobs are in areas like tech and finance, for which being good at maths is essential.  

No: Most people can get by with very basic maths. Thanks to calculators and AIA computer programme that has been designed to think. , numeracy is not very important at all. Literacy opens a world of imagination which is far more exciting and stimulating.     

Or... Both are highly important - but so are a lot of other things, as Stephen Follows points out. Studying poetry, good relationships, music and drama should all be compulsory until 18.