johnny9fingers (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
johnny9fingers) wrote2009-01-29 01:36 pm
johnny9fingers) wrote2009-01-29 01:36 pm
A dismal picture of adult literacy and numeracy in the UK
In the sixties, when we were prepared to spend our taxes on education, we had a literacy rate of over 99%
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jan/29/literacy-numeracy-skills
I quote from the article:
In 2001, the former Department for Education and Skills launched the Skills for Life strategy with the aim of helping 2.25 million adults by 2010. Two years later, it established by survey that 75% of the working-age adult population had numeracy skills below the level of a good pass at GCSE and 56% had similar literacy skills. At that time, the OECD ranked the UK 14th in international literacy and numeracy league tables.
In 2007, the government set a new target, to help 95% of the adult population achieve enough literacy and numeracy to get by in life by 2020.
Now according to United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Index released in 2008 the UK has a 99% literacy rate and is equal 20th in the table with some thirty other countries.
Obviously there is some discrepancy between the two figures. If GCSE English and Maths are the minimum standards 'to get by in life by 2020' were not going to be able to have a third-world-comparative education system. If the comparisons we make are with the developed world and the education systems therein we're a trifle lacking, I fear. 'Twas always thus. We can't educate the plebeians, else who would sweep the streets? Actually in the UK that question is normally answered by the influx of refugee engineers and academics from various places-of-unrest about the globe.
It is actually possible to beat education into children. It may not be moral, but it is possible. What may be impossible is for someone unlettered and unnumbered to exist properly in our complex society.
Strewth, who'd care to be unlettered? By the time they are thirty, anyway?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jan/29/literacy-numeracy-skills
I quote from the article:
In 2001, the former Department for Education and Skills launched the Skills for Life strategy with the aim of helping 2.25 million adults by 2010. Two years later, it established by survey that 75% of the working-age adult population had numeracy skills below the level of a good pass at GCSE and 56% had similar literacy skills. At that time, the OECD ranked the UK 14th in international literacy and numeracy league tables.
In 2007, the government set a new target, to help 95% of the adult population achieve enough literacy and numeracy to get by in life by 2020.
Now according to United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Index released in 2008 the UK has a 99% literacy rate and is equal 20th in the table with some thirty other countries.
Obviously there is some discrepancy between the two figures. If GCSE English and Maths are the minimum standards 'to get by in life by 2020' were not going to be able to have a third-world-comparative education system. If the comparisons we make are with the developed world and the education systems therein we're a trifle lacking, I fear. 'Twas always thus. We can't educate the plebeians, else who would sweep the streets? Actually in the UK that question is normally answered by the influx of refugee engineers and academics from various places-of-unrest about the globe.
It is actually possible to beat education into children. It may not be moral, but it is possible. What may be impossible is for someone unlettered and unnumbered to exist properly in our complex society.
Strewth, who'd care to be unlettered? By the time they are thirty, anyway?