Metric youth
Sir: Christopher Booker writes (17 November) that 'the other day "A. Spokesman" for the dear old doomed Metrication Boad was still solemnly trying to persuade me that "between 18 and 19 million people" in this country have "been educated exclusively in the metric system": The Metrication Board have never quoted a figure to indicate the number of people educated exclusively in metric. The figure of 18-19 million is obtained by doing the simple sum of adding together the January 1977 school population of over 11 million (these are the latest figures available from DES), the 6 million young people who left school in the six years before that date and about 1 million children who have started school since. If Mr Booker ever meets youngsters he can quite easily check that they are educated in the metric system.
As to his suggestion that metrication should have been confined to commerce, this was answered by the then Minister for Trade and Consumer Affairs on 24 July 1973 when he said: 'Metrication cannot stop at the factory gate. It is not practicable to confine metrication to some aspects of life while others remain imperial. Living with two systems of measurement would become increasingly confusing and costly.' J. M. Wood Chairman, Metrication Board, Millbank Tower, London SW1
Previous page
