Sixty Shanghai Math teachers flown into the UK to raise numeracy standards
The Unhived Mind
12 March 2014 Last updated at 00:38
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-26533428
Shanghai teachers flown in for maths
By Sean Coughlan
Up to 60 Shanghai maths teachers are to be brought to England to raise standards, in an exchange arranged by the Department for Education.
They will provide masterclasses in 30 “maths hubs”, which are planned as a network of centres of excellence.
Shanghai’s pupils have the highest maths results in international tests.
The announcement comes as a campaign is launched to raise adult maths skills, with warnings that poor numeracy is costing the UK economy £20bn per year.
The National Numeracy Challenge aims to improve numeracy levels for a million people.
It is providing an online self-assessment test – with help for those lacking in confidence in maths.
Financial cost
Mike Ellicock, chief executive of National Numeracy, says 78% of working-age adults have maths skills below the equivalent of a GCSE grade C – and that half only have the maths skills of a child leaving primary school.
A survey of 2,300 adults for the numeracy campaign found that over a third thought their level of maths had held them back.
An accompanying economic analysis said that a lack of maths skills cost the UK the equivalent of 1.3% of GDP or £20bn per year.
Improving standards in maths was about hard work, rather than any aptitude or a “maths gene”, said Mr Ellicock.
The proposals to bring 60 English-speaking maths teachers from Shanghai is an attempt to learn from a city that has been the top performer in the OECD’s Pisa tests.
The OECD says that children of poor families in Shanghai are on average better at maths than middle class children in the UK.
The Shanghai teachers, expected to arrive from the autumn, will help share their teaching methods, support pupils who are struggling and help to train other teachers.
They will be based in “maths hubs” – and bidding to become such a specialist centre will open on Wednesday.
The maths hubs will be partnerships of schools, which will work with maths experts and share best practice with other schools in their area.
“We have some brilliant maths teachers in this country but what I saw in Shanghai – and other Chinese cities – has only strengthened my belief that we can learn from them,” said education minister, Elizabeth Truss, who has recently visited Shanghai, accompanied by head teachers from England.
“They have a can-do attitude to maths – and I want us to match that, and their performance.”
She emphasised the economic significance of raising maths standards, for individuals and the country.
“As part of our long term economic plan, we are determined to drive up standards in our schools and give our young people the skills they need to succeed in the global race.
“Good maths qualifications have the greatest earnings potential and provide the strongest protection against unemployment,” said the education minister.
Christine Blower, leader of the National Union of Teachers, warned that the results from Shanghai were not representative of the rest of China.
“The suggestion that all of China’s students perform well in mathematics is a myth. The government’s evidence for this comes from the Pisa findings of 2012 data which is based on the results of one particular province of China: Shanghai. This is home to the wealthiest and most highly educated Chinese citizens.”
theunhivedmind says:
The problem with western education standards dropping is a multiple pronged planned attack involving chemicals, radiation, microwave radiation, vaccines as well as bad standards. Children have been tainted by chemicals like Fluoride which is proven to damage the brain and ruin cognitive functioning as highlighted recently in The Lancet. On top of this you have lacking standards and the need for the coming World government to focus on communist-style indoctrination of children to the new system no different to what Hitler did during World War II. More focus is put on things like sex education and being part of the collective not an individual than maths, reading and writing. It is time The Worshipful Company of Haberdashers and their minions were removed and real education put in their place. Since 1988 the standards of teaching in England plummeted with the introduction of the dumbed down National Curriculum through the Education Reform Act. Today English children do not even know about the British Constitution and for good reason in the eyes of those treasonous swines attempting to destroy Great Britain (EU). Chinese children are not force fed fluoride or similar poisons, they are fitter children practising martial arts like Tai Chi and Qi-Gong. These children eat the correct foods for human health as the Chinese are masters of the human diet system under the traditional Chinese medicine system. Our children are fed GMO non-nutritious poisons along with wrong diet plans promoting dangerous vegetable oils, soy, rapeseed and other thyroid poisons again attacking thyroid and brain function. What about the dangerous hate campaign against our much needed saturated fats? Is it any wonder the brain cannot function as the body does not get the fats and needs it requires? Children are being prescribed by psychiatric pseudo science anti-depressant poisons which ruin brain function. All this Shanghai schooling nonsense will not work until all these problems are corrected. Not forgetting how most the children in the west are born by C-section so they have lowered IQ and immunity.
-= The Unhived Mind