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THE DIRECTOR OF a nationwide campaign to improving the country’s numeracy skills says that a “fear of maths” can be damaging to society as a whole.
Eoin Gill co-ordinates Maths Week Ireland, which runs from next Monday until 20 October. He said that the aim of the week is to encourage adults to improve their numeracy – both to benefit the economy but also to break the cycle of fear around maths when it comes to their children.
He said:
All too often we hear people say ‘I can’t do maths’ and this leads to the mistaken belief that you have to be hardwired to do well at maths. While not everyone can become a top mathematician, many could learn to enjoy maths if we break the “cycle of fear” associated with the subject. That’s why the events of Maths Week are designed to presentmaths as interesting, challenging and rewarding – even fun.
Numeracy skills were vital in making Ireland an attractive location for potential employers, he said, but also acknowledged that they are a “basic requirement for society as a whole”. He said: “People need a good grounding in basic numeracy for basic money and financial management… Even for working out a recipe for baking a cake, numeracy skills are vital.”
There are events listed on MathsWeek.ie and updates on Facebook and Twitter. It is a project undertaken by a partnership of universities, libraries, colleges, schools and other bodies. Keep an eye out on TheJournal.ie every morning next week from a maths brainteaser to test your mathematical mettle. (Nothing too lofty, we promise.)
Ireland came 19th out of 24 countries in numeracy skills rankings in a report published by the OECD earlier this week. That places us below average in those countries ranked, with only France, Spain and Italy below us in the rankings. Those also under the average – but higher than Ireland – were Poland, Cyprus, Austria, the US, Germany, Denmark, the UK and South Korea.
That report also linked more positive social and economic outcomes to higher numerical literacy among adults. It also said that “success is increasingly about building skills beyond formal education” and stressed the importance of lifelong learning.
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Is Charlie Flanagan still TD Ah here I give up
This government has managed to get the lifetime of their own government out of the Commission on the Defence Forces. It was lauded in the beginning as a template for change. That was in 2019. The public and others were invited to make submissions in 2020, With the report due for release that December. December came and went, and the report was finally released in february, the Govt sat on it until making the obvious decision to accept the recommendations of LOA2 in July, but with an implementation group who would report back in 6 months. We’ll not go to LOA2 right away though, we’ll do it in phases, increasing defence spending in increments equal to the cost of One military aircraft per year.Here we are now almost June 2023, with nothing substantial achieved apart from a few more high paid civil service posts filled.
Tanagan would have us fighting under the Union Flag if he could. Does anybody really care what he says in this day and age?
Ireland should be a respected neutral country with an army capable of defending the country. Personally I would like weapons that could kill lots of people, this would deter even the worlds biggest countries from invading us.
@Brian Boru:
Nukes…
@Gerry Dornan: whoopee cushions. Can you imagine Putin sitting on one?
Maybe he should get the black and Tans to help out
I’m surprised at Cathal Berry. He should know the one person that will slow this process down to a crawl on that committee. Waiting to appoint a Head of Transformation (there must be a civil servant due retirement)someone who will then appoint someone and hey presto it will be election time. The Sec of the Department was put there for a reason. To make sure Defence is treated at a snails pace. Give nothing to the Military at all costs. I have never seen a Secretary of the Department do or introduce anything constructive EVER. Thats why they are kept.
So the chairperson in charge of a committee for implementing modernisation after meeting 6 times says that a head of transformation is due to be appointed but that other measures are delayed because of the IRG group publication which delayed the development of an implement implementation plan, and that the establishment of an (enquiry) and development of the terms of reference for it and potential interface on both of those and ensuring that the implementation plan is comprehensive also delayed. Please read that back and realise why so much goes at the snails pace mentioned in the article
We should arm and uniform our new Irish brothers, that would be great for everyone.
So the notoriously thin-skinned Flanagan, who was rightly demoted after the last general election, is mouthing off again…
Yawn!
I have a copy of the Epstein Flight log…
go to http://www.realchiefpolice.com or
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/truther
@Real Chieflice Trump MAGA 2024:
Tosspot
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