Action needed on basic skills

Wednesday, 15 December 2004 12:00 AM

Government efforts to improve the basic literacy and numeracy skills of adults are working, according to a new report from the National Audit Office.

The Department for Education and Skills is praised for achieving its 2004 target to improve the skills of 750,000 adults. The NAO concludes that the strategy "is starting to have an impact.and is increasing participation in learning".

However, it warns that improvements in teaching and targeting of help are still needed if the Government is to meet its 2010 target of helping 1.5 million adults to achieve a first qualification.

But, to reach the next target difficult groups will have to be engaged.

The NAO estimates that there are 26 million adults in England and Wales whose basic skills are "below those expected of school leavers" - with some having skills below the level expected of a 9 to 11-year-old. Many of these people have difficulty finding employment, or work in low skilled jobs.

It calls on the department to find "new and creative ways to persuade more people with the lowest skill levels that improving their skills is worthwhile."

But it notes: "There continue to be high barriers to some people taking up opportunities to learn, or to them continuing with learning once started."

Auditor general Sir John Bourn, said: "The Department has made substantial progress since 2001 in improving the teaching of literacy and numeracy and making more people aware of the options and wanting to learn. But this is only the beginning."

But, the director of the Basic Skills Agency cast doubt on the official assessment of the scale of the problem. Alan Well said there was "so little evidence that we have a basic skills problem of this magnitude."

"The Government's Skills For Life strategy takes a lack of a GCSE pass at A*-C as an indication of difficulties with literacy and/or numeracy, but this is a very crude proxy and does not stand up to a great deal of scrutiny. To suggest that only people with an A*-C GCSE pass are literate and numerate denigrates the achievements of generations of people who have perfectly good literacy and numeracy skills but did not get an A*-C at GCSE.

"I believe that the impact of any national strategy to improve standards of literacy and numeracy of adults has to be judged on its effectiveness in improving the basic skills of the minority of adults that really do have difficulties, rather than the impact on adults who have no problem with these basic skills."

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