How we decide the prioritisation of state spending is a complex subject and varies according to many criteria, not least the political leanings of the incumbent government (or should that be recumbent!). Education is a complicated thing to fund because there needs to be consideration given both to the current state of education, e.g. teachers, blackboards etc, and the future needs of the society.
The future needs of our society seem to be slightly off kilter compared with the future needs of China's society if this news article is anything to go by: link. It seems that they are preparing their children for mathematical greatness whereas we are preparing ours for mathematical mediocrity. Of course, if you compare China's health service with ours it will not appear as advanced, however in twenty years, when those Chinese maths experts have grown up and had a chance to change their society I suspect that China will have a better society all round than we do.
It's natural pessimism to think this way, but one can't help it sometimes when you look at the potential of a country like China and what they're doing to educate their people for the future whilst we seem to be treading water!
More maths please!!
I think this has touched me especially today as I am on a bit of a maths kick at the moment. I am reading The Music of the Primes (backwards as it happens) and loving it. Sometimes I think I am close to grasping the underlying nature of numbers and how it relates to the Universe (see mathematical symmetry and Group Theory), but then I realise that my mind isn't wired in the right way. I doubt that anyone's mind is wired in the right way at this current epoch. There are, however, tantalising glimpes available today of some of the fundamental mechanisms of our Universe and they are both beautiful and shocking at the same time.
Now... what's that Pythagoras triangle thing again...
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