Prime minister Rishi Sunak has set out his first big idea for education - some sort of compulsory maths until 18 for all pupils.

“Right now, just half of all 16- to 19-year-olds study any maths at all,” he said in a speech. “Yet in a world where data is everywhere and statistics underpin every job, our children’s jobs will require more analytical skills than ever before.”

Specifics on what this will mean remain unknown, but it’s a move that immediately raised eyebrows and plenty of questions...

How would ‘maths to 18’ impact schools?

Based on the most recent exam data from the government, the last cohort size for qualifications at age 18 was 628,023.

Of this, the actual number of students who sat A levels was 275,960, as outlined by recent Ofqual data. This led to a total of 788,125 A-level entries being taken - with three being the highest average number of entries (65.8 per cent of all students)

Of all these A-level entries, 89,605 were for maths (making it the most popular A-level subject) and 14,520 for further maths - likely drawn from the same pool.

As such, at A level alone, around another 185,000 students would have to take some form of maths - although it should be noted the government has said it does not envision making A-level maths compulsory.

Nonetheless, that’s a lot of extra pupils suddenly facing the prospect of more maths - many of whom would have otherwise had no desire to continue their studies in this area.

Do we have enough teachers?

The obvious question that throws up is: who would teach them all?

Currently, the most recent government school workforce statistics say there are 35,771 maths teachers - the second highest for a specific subject behind English with 39,043 - teaching school years 7 to 13.

That will almost certainly not be enough to cope with any sudden change to maths teaching - a point raised by Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders.

“We want to hear how such a policy would avoid exacerbating the already-chronic national shortage of maths teachers,” he says.

In fact, as recently noted on Tes, the government actually lowered its quota for the number of new trainee maths teachers from 2,800 to 2,040, despite having missed its recruitment targets at the higher figure for two years previously.

As such, many maths lessons are taught by non-maths specialists, as Jack Worth, school workforce lead at the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), notes.

“Twelve per cent of all secondary maths teaching hours in England are delivered by a teacher without a relevant post-A-level qualification in the subject,” he explains. “There are likely to be some significant gaps in teaching quality within the current workforce.”

As such, it’s clear that serious work will be needed to meet the new requirements if the plan would require face-to-face teaching within the school.

How will this plan impact further education?

Any plan to widen maths study to 18 will include further education (FE) and affect large numbers of students, again posing some tricky questions.

Data from the Association for Colleges (AoC) shows that 611,000 students aged 16-18 are in FE colleges as of 2022. From this, 282,000 are studying a course related to maths, such as core maths, A-level maths or functional skills. 

It is also likely that other courses students are taking will contain maths units, such as engineering, that are not included in this data.

But without further details on any plans from the government, it is hard to know if students in either of these groups would also be included in any requirements to take some form of additional maths or not.

Another group that will also want to know how the plan may affect them are those who do GCSE resits.

The most recent data for maths resits from the AoC shows that 114,476 students resat the exam in 2022, and 140,339 the year before that.

So would any plan to require ongoing maths until 18 include these students after they have passed their resits, too? Again it’s unclear.

However, any change will likely run into the same staffing problems for the school sector, as Catherine Sezen, education director at the AoC, outlines.

“Poor 16-18 funding is a big obstacle to recruiting and retaining staff to teach maths for all. Maths teacher recruitment incentives are paid to schools but not colleges and funding per student drops 20 per cent at age 16 for no good reason - this requires urgent attention,” she says.

Is 16-18 the right time for extra maths?

One of the justifications used for this focus on maths was the need to improve numeracy in the population, with the government claiming “8 million adults have the numeracy skills of primary school children”.

What’s more, it also noted that the gap in maths attainment between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils is particularly acute, with 60 per cent of disadvantaged pupils having no basic maths skills by the age of 16.

As such, it’s easy to see why the government wants to tackle this.

However, data from earlier in a child’s educational life makes it clear these issues begin from a young age, with government data showing that a gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged peers starts from as early as 4.

Specifically, when comparing maths skills in pupils eligible for free school meals and their peers, 80.4 per cent of non-disadvantaged pupils are at the expected level, compared with just 62.9 per cent of disadvantaged pupils.

This gap continues to widen throughout primary, with data for the key stage 2 maths paper showing 78 per cent of non-disadvantaged pupils are at the expected level, compared with just 56 per cent of disadvantaged pupils.

As such, some have said it would make a lot more sense to put this focus on maths at the start of a child’s education, rather than the end - when time will be spent undoing issues caused years earlier.

Neil Leitch, CEO of Early Years Alliance, says that although he thinks it’s positive to see the government focusing on education, the proposed policy is “too little, too late” for many children and “especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds”.

“Time and time again, research has shown that the most significant period of children’s learning and development takes place before they even reach the school gates - and yet, despite all the government’s focus on ‘closing the gap’, when it comes to policy, this is continually forgotten,” says Leitch.

So what would help? According to Leitch, if the prime minister is “really serious about improving education” then “prioritising early education” would be a better bet.

Will it ever happen?

Sunak has said he wants to lay out the plan for the “maths to 18” policy in this Parliament and see it come to life in the next - which will require a Conservative government to be elected.

That’s definitely not guaranteed, as many polls have Labour a long way ahead at present. Nonetheless, a lot can change in politics and Sunak has said this plan is “personal for me”. If he is re-elected, he may well task any education secretary with seeing it to fruition.

If that happens, many in education will be watching closely to see how the plan will take shape.