Children should not be the arbiters of the education system  To avoid teaching maths to children just because they don’t like the subject would be to shape the education system around adolescent whims. But children are not best placed to put a value on their education. They don’t know what knowledge is required for life and what skills are required for a career. They are likely to choose arbitrarily, influenced perhaps by which teachers are most strict, which subject they happen to be good at and what mood they’re in. It is for this reason that we don’t recognise children as being fully capable of making decisions about their education. Consequences of this include a government-fixed curriculum.  Adults know the value of maths: one poll in America found that 34% of people named it as the most valuable subject they had studied at school. [1] We think children should be learning maths, and it follows that they will have to do it, like it or not.  [1] Robison, Jennifer, ‘Math Tops List of Most Valuable Subjects’, Gallup, 21 January 2003,