Madagascar hits bottom of world maths league table

Madagascar's President Ratsiraka has promised a wholesale restructure of the country's education system in response to the news that the island — the fourth largest in the world — finished bottom of the world mathematics league table.

The announcement comes as the country faces increasing turmoil provoked by the recent presidential elections. Thanks entirely to the Madagascans' innumeracy, Mr Ratsiraka, his main rival Marc Ravalomanana and the country's High Constitutional Court are unable to agree on how to break down simple figures into percentages.

Mr Ravalomana is good with big numbers, stating that he won the election by 200,000 votes — a total which has passed inspection. However, he claims that his overall votes account for 52.1 per cent and so give him a majority and hence the presidency.

The High Constitutional Court has rustled up the lower figure of 46.2 per cent, which forces a second poll between the two men. President Ratsiraka appears to have got hold of an entirely different set of figures which he plans to introduce after the new ballot, whatever the outcome.

Sadly, problems with basic numeracy are not confined to the government. The state-owned radio and TV stations seemed to be unable to agree with the independent newspapers on just how many people have protested over the situation during the past month. Some have presented negligible figures while others claim mobs of one million enraged citizens.

The problem is thought to originate from when Mr Ratsiraka — then just an Admiral — seized the country in a military coup in 1975. As virtual dictator, he attempted to introduce socialist rule, cut all ties with the West and helped move things along by suspending the country's Senate. Unfortunately, his poor grasp of figures let him down and the country ended up not being able to do things like build any roads.

Mr Ratsiraka did, nonetheless, learn from his errors and when, only 18 years later, he allowed the first elections in the country since he came to power, it was clear — to him at least — that he had finally learnt how to balance the books. Annoyingly, he was voted straight out of office.

Armed with his new-found learning, and in the country's best interests, he impeached the new president and cunningly applied advanced creative statistical analysis to the subsequent elections, which he won.

Evidence of Ratsiraka's much-improved grasp of the subject came when he introduced tolls on some new bridges which had recently come into his possession. One MP ill-advisedly pointed out that the bridges were a gift from abroad, but such details did not figure in Ratsiraka's equations and the MP was imprisoned.

But, despite indications that he was getting a feel for figures, Ratsiraka continued to make elementary errors. For example, he counted only 18 ministers who resigned in 1998 in protest at his behaviour. In fact, there were 19 — although this may have been down to Ratsiraka forgetting to include the prime minister. A natural mistake.

Many were hoping that Mr Ravalomanana would introduce an improved maths curriculum once elected president. Yet despite being a successful businessman, Mr Ravalomanana is not thought to be keen to encourage maths for fear that people might be able to work out for themselves that his promises of total employment and huge capital investment just don't add up.

Either way, it is clear that Madagascar needs to improve its numeracy if it is not to get a visit from Tony Blair in full finger-wagging preacher mode.