Are you talking high school or university maths? Australia had (and probably still has) financial and tax-based maths in high school (as well as intro stats).

High school, and even more particularly, the stuff we serve up to everyone, hence my reference to STEM-specific specialization for matrices.

In university you have the specialization to do as you need to do, e.g., serve up matrices to those who need them, serve up real analysis to those who need that, etc. And while HN is obviously fairly STEM-focused, a lot of majors in University won't get any math at all if you think about it, only just enough to have the fig leaf of a liberal education.