An excerpt from an informational film from the 1940s warning of the lack of qualified teachers has been unearthed on YouTube.
The dramatization shows children in a classroom, eagerly listening to a maths teacher.
Music plays in the background of the clip as a voiceover begins: "True democracy can exist only among our people prepared from childhood for the responsibilities of citizenship.
“Recognising this fact, the American people have built up over the generations, a vast nationwide system of public schools intended to give every child in the United States the opportunity for a thorough education.
“US schools have been forced to hire some 125,000 emergency teachers who lack the qualification ordinarily required in their state.
“Some of them never got beyond the primary grades and most of them have had no professional training for their jobs."
The actor portraying the teacher is trying to work out a formula on the blackboard in front of the pupils. She is evidently struggling, erasing and re-starting the formula a number of times before the students break into laughter.
The footage then moves on to show a geography teacher, a character which the voiceover notes as being unfit to teach children successfully, before a teacher who represents the correct way to teach is filmed encouraging students to ask questions and not to just believe something because other people do.
As the depicted maths teacher struggles, it suggests that even some 80 years ago, there was a general maths skills shortage, just as there is today.
The UK’s numeracy levels are currently significantly below the average for developed countries, with 49 per cent of the UK’s working-age population having the expected numeracy levels of a primary school child.
The government recently announced the 'Multiply' scheme - a new initiative in the form of a £560 million numeracy scheme that will support up to 500,000 adults with low numeracy skills in the UK.
