Mandatory business skills needed
The OECD have issued their latest report on where we rank on numeracy and literacy for 16 – 65 year olds. We rank 4 in literacy and 13 in numeracy. What makes this interesting is that there are over 2M small businesses in Australia, but they don’ teach kids and adults about business, profit and loss and balance sheet statements before they may head in the same direction. This should be mandatory and as a result of this I think you would see a flow on effect on numeracy skills. Tell me when you need algebra to run a business! The other area we should be doing more is mandatory Asian languages. In Asia many of my old work colleagues have 2 or 3 languages and with the world getting more and more integrated with technology, this is something we should seriously address.
