09 January 2009
By Graham Clews
Innumeracy in England could cost the public sector as much as £2.4bn each year, according to the Every Child a Chance Trust.
The charity, funded by City organisations including KPMG and the Private Equity Foundation, estimated that around 7 million adults have maths skills at or below the level of a nine-year-old.
Each one will cost the taxpayer up to £44,000 by the time they reach 37, the trust claimed, in areas such as special needs support in school, permanent exclusions, adult numeracy classes, lost tax revenues, substance abuse treatment and involvement with the criminal justice system.
These costs, the trust said, were entirely related to poor numeracy.
The trust worked with the government on the Every Child a Reader and Every Child Counts schemes, which aim to provide one-to-one tuition for six and seven-year-olds who struggle with maths and reading by 2011.
The charity estimates that £1.6bn could be saved annually if all 35,000 children who leave primary school with poor numeracy skills were given effective one-to-one teaching at age seven.
PFjan2009
