January 16, 2009
Forget all this nonsense about how the government can hit its Leitch skills targets: the answer to training people in GCSE-level maths and giving the workforce basic numerancy skills is simple - step up to the oche and teach them how to play darts.
Guru enjoyed watching Phil "The Power" Taylor win another world championship at Alexandra Palace recently, as well as the not-much-better-than-your-local-pub-player event at Lakeside earlier this month.
But he couldn't imagine that while these 'elite sportsmen' were throwing the arrows at the dart board, the government was thinking: 'Hang on, these fine gents could inspire adults who have poor maths skills'.
Further education minister Sion Simon recently said almost seven million adults struggled with basic maths and darts could be the solution to upping their knowledge.
To back this up, the government asked a boffin from the University of Bath to go on the mother of all pub crawls and examine the mathmatical skills of the country's darts players. He said (presumably while sipping a large G&T): "The amount of complicated maths that is involved in darts is incredibly impressive. Whether the players know it or not, they are working out complicated geometry and physics while choosing from hundreds of possible shot combinations."
And here was Guru thinking that these guys just stood there and threw the darts as close to the number they needed as possible.
Darts-themed teaching aids are now being distributed to adult education colleges across the country, so employers should prepare themselves for a new army of workers who are great at subtraction - as long as it starts from 501; can multi-task while holding a pint in their hands; and come to work with a ridiculous nickname stitched into their shirts.
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