Jobless fathers ‘confident’ with maths homework

Unemployed construction workers with poor literacy are highly confident at helping their children with maths homework, education research has found.

The need to use maths concepts in their former work situations was a consistent theme behind their confidence. The finding emerged in a study about how unemployed fathers engage with their children’s education at three Cork primary schools in the Department of Education’s DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools) scheme.

Dorothy Keane, a home school community liaison (HSCL) teacher at Scoil na Croise Naofa in Mahon, worked with 16 fathers for a masters degree dissertation to see what issues affected their involvement. “Even the father who was illiterate noted that when it came to maths with his child, he translated everything to money and then he could do it ‘in a flash’,” she said.