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See also Adult learning update
(covers more general news on adult education issues)
2002/03
The CBI has published results of a new annual audit of the nation’s skills. The survey, 'CBI/Edexcel Education & Skills Survey 2008', examining 735 firms, employing 1.7 million people between them. It identified skills gaps in the workplace and revealed the skills employers value the most.
Two-fifths of employers had serious concerns about employees’ basic literacy and numeracy skills. On the literacy side, the main problems are not being able to write in sentences, spell correctly or use accurate grammar. On the numeracy side, the key issue is the inability to spot simple errors or rogue numbers.
While most employers (63%) described staff in high skilled roles as ‘good’, fewer did so for those in intermediate level jobs (43%) and even fewer for lower skilled staff (35%).
Poor basic skills have a serious impact on customer service according to two-fifths (40%) of employers, and lower productivity according to a third (34%). Both issues have damaging implications for business performance and around a quarter of employers are investing in remedial literacy and numeracy training.
The CBI’s Deputy Director-General, John Cridland, said: "Being skilled is all the more important in an increasingly global economy, and our message to students is that your hard work to attain the right skills and good qualifications is essential to securing quality, well-paid jobs after school, college or university.”
(CBI, 18 April 2008)
The Guardian has reported on reserach from Learndirect
which has said that poor mathematics skills cost British adults
more than £800m a year, according to a survey of 1,000 adults.
It also revealed that one in three workers - 14.6 million
people - admit their inadequate numeracy and literacy skills
have lost their company money. Half those questioned felt
their basic maths and English skills let them down. Many said
they did not know the difference between basic words or homophones
such as there and their. Learndirect said £823m is lost each
year due to inadequate basic skills - enough to pay the starting
salaries of more than 40,000 new teachers.
The Guardian interviewed Judi James, a workplace expert,
who said that around a third of people surveyed said they
feel embarrassed, panicked or afraid when their basic skills
let them down. Learndirect also estimated that 1.4 million
workers in the UK believe they have missed out on a promotion,
or even lost a job, due to a lack of basic maths or English
skills.
(Guardian, 21 February 2007)
The training of some further education teachers is being
held back by their inability to read, write and use ICT properly.
Although all were highly-motivated, the report by the Schools'
Inspectorate, indicated that a lack of teaching experience
meant that many were not well prepared for working with students.
Ofsted found that trainees were not only unable to make use
of their own skills to teach, but that a few were "constrained
by weaknesses in their own literacy and numeracy or a lack
of effective study techniques". This meant that many trainees
were unable to address errors in student assignments. Although
training for vocational teachers was good or better in half
of the providers studied, the inspectors said that as many
as half gave too little attention to key aspects of applied
learning. Ofsted found that there were "unacceptable variations"
in the quality of training plans and needs assessment of individual
trainees from school to school.
(The Times, 19 January 2007)
Up to 16 million adults - nearly half the workforce - are holding down jobs despite having the reading and writing skills expected of children leaving primary school. MPs on the Commons Public Accounts Committee claim that a major government scheme costing billions of pounds has done little to improve the quality of adult literacy and numeracy teaching.
The Department for Education is on course to have spent almost £6bn on its Skills for Life scheme by 2010, but its first few years have produced little evidence of improvement in provision in colleges or on-the-job training by employers.
The committee examined progress made improving the literacy, language and numeracy skills of adults in England, expanding learning provision and improving its quality, and targeting adults who need to improve their skills. It looked in depth at the effectiveness of Skills for Life, which was launched in 2001 with a target to improve the skills of 2.25 million adults by 2010.
But it suggests that much higher spending is necessary to deliver real improvements. Although the DfES has spent at least £3.7bn, the committee concluded that was "likely only to mark the start of a long-term programme. Estimated further expenditure of over £2bn could be needed to sustain the strategy until 2010."
The report highlights poor quality of provision and teaching as a major reason for lack of progress. "The quality of provision for adults is still too low. An extensive review of quality and standards by Ofsted and the Adult Learning Inspectorate found widespread weaknesses. People in the greatest need were getting the worst provision, and even in colleges, provision of literacy, language and numeracy was poorer than the provision for other areas of learning. In the first three years of the strategy, inspections have shown little evidence of improvement."
The skills minister, Phil Hope, said: "Tackling the huge legacy of poor adult literacy and numeracy skills is a key priority for this government. Poor skills may cost the country as much as £10bn a year and our continuing investment reflects this. Already, 3.7 million adults have taken the first step to engaging in learning, with over 1 million of these going on to achieve first qualifications."
For further information on adult skills levels see the NLT key skills explanation
The full Public Accounts Committee report Skills for Life: improving adult literacy and numeracy is available at - www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506
(Guardian, 24 January 2006)
Screening new students in Welsh colleges has exposed deficiencies
in basic numeracy and literacy. But on a standstill budget
they are struggling to cope with the fall-out. John Graystone,
chief executive of the colleges body Fforwm said that when
screening was introduced in 2004 by the former funding body
ELWA, it identified 'a huge need'. Mr Graystone added: "I'm
hearing figures of around 50 to 60% across the board, far
greater than many of us realised. You can't ignore it. Yet
we haven't the funding to respond."
In last year's skills action plan, the Assembly government
revealed that 24% of the working-age population lacked level
1 literacy skills and 53% level 1 in numeracy. In Wales, 20%
have no qualifications compared with 14% across the UK.
(TES Cymru, June 30 2006)
This TES article by Professor John Bynner, project director
with the NRDC, at the Institute of Education, London, discusses
the acquisition of skills beyond qualifications in light of
the Leitch Review, and compares the UK with other developed
countries. To read this article in full visit: www.tes.co.uk/search/story/?story_id=2259493
(TES, June 7 2006)
Ursula Howard, director of the NRDC
at the Institute of Education, discusses the overemphasis
on reading in the literacy curriculum. To read visit: http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,1785315,00.html
(Guardian, 30 May 2006)
A £2bn scheme to improve basic skills among adults has
been called a "depressing failure" by education inspectors.
The Skills for Life programme aims to boost literacy and numeracy
skills but the Adult Learning Inspectorate (ALI) said the initiative
was not working, despite the "extraordinary" amount
of money the Government had spent on it.
The report was particularly critical of skills programmes
in prisons, stating that over half of prisons investigated
offered "inadequate" provision. The report said
"too many" managers in prisons were failing to correct
faults and weaknesses pointed out by inspectors. There also
needed to be greater awareness among all prison staff of the
role they played in developing skills.
The inspectors said Skills for Life was not achieving its
key aim of helping people from the most disadvantaged backgrounds.
"There has been a depressing lack of improvement and
a failure effectively to tackle weaknesses over the past four
years," its annual report said. "This is despite
an extraordinary injection of funds and capacity building
from the Government's Skills for Life campaign."
However, the report did acknowledge a "dramatic improvement"
in work-based training over the past four years, with inadequacy
rates falling from 58% in 2001/02 to 25% in 2004/05.
David Sherlock, ALI's chief inspector, said adult education
colleges were being forced to make up for the shortcomings
of state schools. He said, "We cannot get away from the
fact that the adult learning sector is distorted to deal with
the shortcomings of our schools system. Until we deal with
our failure to properly equip so many young people for adulthood,
let alone successful careers, we cannot hope to build a world-beating
adult skills strategy."
Skills minister Phil Hope acknowledged that there was much
more to be done, but said the report had highlighted major
improvements in the quality of training. He said, "The
report will be a spur to help us identify what needs to be
done to raise the quality of provision across the board. More
than a million adults have improved their skills and gained
a first qualification since we launched the Skills for Life
programme. We are on course to meet our target of improving
the skills of 2.25 million adults by 2010."
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4506410.stm
December 2005)
A shortage of specialist teachers is jeopardising the Government's
attempt to help more people with basic literacy and numeracy,
according to its own inspectors. The Office for Standards
in Education says shortages of teachers with the necessary
expertise and qualifications in literacy, numeracy and English
for speakers of other languages (Esol) remain in all types
of college.
In its report about the Government's "Skills for Life"
strategy to to improve adult basic skills, Ofsted says: "The
Skills for Life strategy has yet to deliver significant improvements
in the quality of provision. The proportion of unsatisfactory
provision for literacy, numeracy and Esol is unacceptably
high in general further education colleges.
"The lack of skilled teachers is at the heart of the
continuing difficulties with effective implementation of the
Skills for Life strategy."
The Ofsted findings mirror the results of a survey carried
out last year by The TES and the National Institute of Adult
Continuing Education (Niace), which drew an angry response
from the then skills minister Ivan Lewis.
The report revealed that the quality of courses for English
for speakers of other languages has actually deteriorated,
with nearly a third unsatisfactory compared with 26 per cent
a year ago. Their report said: "A significant minority
of vocational teachers have weak literacy and numeracy skills
themselves.
Skills for life in colleges: one year on www.ofsted.gov.uk
(TES, 7 October 2005)
Teenagers with top-grade GCSE passes in maths and English are having to be tested again when they look for a job because so many lack basic skills. A report reveals a growing number of school-leavers with GCSEs lack the skills even to write a business letter or do basic sums.
It suggests that time should be set aside in the school timetable to coach youngsters in specific skills such as letter-writing.
The research, which was carried out among leading employers in the City of London, will refuel the debate over exam standards - and whether secondary schools are putting enough effort into improving standards in the basic subjects. "Some recruitment consultancies working on the employers' behalf test for literacy and numeracy - or offer further training in these areas - even where candidates hold the relevant GCSEs," it concludes. "This does not necessarily imply 'dumbing down' or a lowering of standards at age 16 although a few employers did have concerns in this area.
"It was more the case that the qualifications were thought not to equip recruits with particular basic arithmetic skills or business English for letter-writing and other professional communications."It adds: "Recruiters stated that candidates for administrative and secretarial, clerical and customer-support positions often lack basic skills and soft skills, as well as lacking in confidence and presentation skills." Soft skills are defined as an ability to communicate or engage in team work. It recommends more public-speaking opportunities.
The report also recommends the introduction of specialist coaching in business English and maths in schools - and adds that pupils should be persuaded to study traditional academic subjects rather than vocational qualifications.
It will make gloomy reading for ministers who rejected the call from the inquiry headed by the former chief schools inspector Sir Mike Tomlinson to replace the GCSE and A-level system with a single diploma to give more credibility to vocational qualifications.
This report shows that - while the two are separated - employers pay scant attention to vocational qualifications. The researchers said that employers "stuck to their traditional beliefs in the GCSE and A-level system and didn't necessarily move with the times".
(Independent, 29 June 2005)
Social groups that would arguably benefit most from adult
education remain the least likely to try it, according to
a survey published in May 2005. And a gender gap may be starting
to open up, as the proportion of women learning grows while
male participation declines, notes the study carried out for
Niace, the National Institute for Adult and Continuing Education.
Despite campaigns that promote the advantages of learning,
the proportion of adults saying they have done none since
leaving full-time education has stubbornly remained at around
35% since 1996, when the Niace surveys began.
More than half those in full or part-time employment are
currently learning or have done some learning in the past
three years, compared with 40% of the registered unemployed.
The upper and middle classes are roughly twice as likely to
be pursuing adult education as unskilled workers and people
on limited incomes (socioeconomic groups D and E). Overall,
almost one in five (19%) adults are doing some learning, a
drop of 4% since 1996. "The economic pressures on publicly
funded adult learning opportunities make it likely that this
trend will be difficult to reverse in the next three years,"
comments the introduction to the 2005 Niace survey on adult
participation in learning.
Some of its findings are encouraging. Despite the gap in
participation between groups ABC1 and the Ds and Es, participation
among all socioeconomic classes has increased by 2 or 3%.
This increase has been most notable among group C1, skilled
manual workers. In 1996, 33% of them said they were engaged
in learning or had been in the previous three years. The proportion
in the latest survey is 40%. Though the proportion of adults
actually involved in learning at the time of the survey has
dropped by 4% in a decade, the proportion of them added to
those who have undertaken some education in the previous three
years has risen slightly, to 42% over the past 12 months.
The survey was carried out for Niace by the research organisation
RSGB, which interviewed more than 5,000 adults, aged 17 or
over, during the last two weeks of February. The definition
of learning it used was wide. It included "practising,
studying or reading about something" as well as being
taught, instructed or coached. It did not have to head to
a qualification, nor did it have to last very long. In general,
the older people are, the les likely they are to take part
in learning. While, for instance, 52% of the 25-32 age-group
are presently learning, or have done so in the past three
years, that proportion drops to 32% in the 55-64 age group
and 17% in the 65-74 group.
The intention to learn in the future also declines with age,
particularly among the over-55s. Young adults, aged 24 and
under, and older adults, aged 65 plus, are less likely to
say they intend to take up learning in the future than they
were three years ago. "An older population, with longer
periods of active retirement, gains real health benefits from
participation in learning - yet this survey offers no cheer
on the impact of learning outside the world of work",
the report says.
The latest survey confirms again that the later a person
full-time education, the more likely they are to pursue learning
in adulthood, Only 30% of those leaving school as early as
possible are current or recent learners, compared with 60%
of those who complete full-time education at 21 or older.
(Guardian, 24 May 2005)
Thousands of adults are being turned away from basic skills
courses or put on long waiting lists because of staff shortages.
Half the 100 colleges and 60 independent training providers
in the national annual staffing survey said they had cut back
basic skills programmes because of a lack of trained staff.
Nearly a third had to postpone or cancel classes and a quarter
had put learners on a waiting list, according to research
by the TES and National Institute of Continuing Adult Education
(NIACE). The survey was carried out to coincide with Adult
Learners' Week, in late May 2005.
Basic skills teachers say they are struggling to get the
training they need because there are not enough courses and
funding is in short supply. Managers and lecturers responding
to the survey said teacher training courses were often not
available in their area or were full and had long waiting
lists, especially at levels 3 and 4 (A-level and higher education
equivalent). Even when funding is available, colleges struggle
to find cover for those who do it. Alan Tuckett, director
of NIACE, warned that people who had plucked up the courage
to ask for help with literacy and numeracy might not return
if turned away. "Even if only 10% of colleges are turning
people away, they may never come back," he said.
The Department for Education and Skills is aware of the problem,
admitting progress is "patchy" around the country.
Barry Brookes, head of the DfES Skills for Life unit, said
the south-west in particular was "really challenging"
because of its large rural areas and lack of universities.
But he insisted the Learning and Skills Council was getting
to grips with the problem. Since 2001, new subject-specific
teaching qualifications in basic skills have been established.
There is also a new national curriculum for basic skills and
ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages), and new materials.
He said: "A year or two ago, you would be talking about
people saying there are no courses, but now we have people
being trained and more on the waiting list."
The TES/NIACE survey shows colleges are being creative about
dealing with staff shortages. Three-quarters of respondents
use staff development programmes to recruit and retain basic
skills teachers, as well as improve the skills of existing
staff. The same proportion offer full-timers time off for
training, although this falls to half of respondents fro fractional
staff and a quarter fro hourly-paid staff. A quarter offer
payment for attendance at training sessions.
(TES, 20 May 2005)
The Dyslexia Institute estimates that poor literacy and basic
skills resulting from dyslexia that goes undiagnosed costs
the UK economy around £1bn per year. The figure is a
conservative estimate based on the 10% incidence of dyslexia
in the UK, and the higher incidence of dyslexia among the
prisons and probation populations and among the long-term
unemployed. The £1bn total refers to money likely to
be spent on dyslexics in these areas.
Shirley Cramer, chief executive of the institute, took part
in a series of national and local radio interviews in September
2004 and will ensure that charity staff spread the message
via one-to-one chats with the relevant MPs. She also hopes
the message will appear in literature published by the charity's
many government agency partners, such as Job Centre Plus.
Cramer added that a minimum of £368m per annum is spent
on people in prison and on probation who have unidentified
dyslexia.
(Third Sector, 29 September 2004)
One in seven colleges and adult training centres depends
on hourly-paid staff to run their entire basic literacy, numeracy
and language courses, according to a national survey by the
TES and the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education.
More than half of all the institutions responding to the
survey said hourly-paid staff did at least 40% of the work.
The overwhelming majority also depend on part-timers who are
often on short contracts and hired through agencies.
The main findings were:
- 38% of institutions have a large gap in their Skills for
Life (literacy, language and numeracy) provision as a direct
result of under-qualified staff
- 22% reported large gaps in their ESOL provision
- 29% said they use part-time/hourly-paid staff for their
Skills for Life programmes
- 17% employ staff without the necessary qualifications
at levels 2, 3 and 4 (GCSE, A level and degree equivalent)
- 32% said there were not enough training opportunities
for staff at these levels.
(TES, 14 May 2004)
Unions and employers are celebrating the success of learning
reps in improving the basic skills of shopfloor staff. Course
enrolment has trebled to 25,000 in the year since union learning
reps were given legal rights in April 2003 to spend time helping
their colleagues to get trained.
This new status is liable to increase recruitment to unions.
Industry accepts this as a small price to pay for cracking
the basic skills problem which had frustrated human resources
departments. The reps enjoy the same rights in Wales where
the scheme is directly funded by the Welsh Assembly.
In the rail industry there are signs that the skills agenda
is bringing competing unions together in an unprecedented
way as they pool resources to tackle their members' skill
levels.
But with 80% of private-sector workers not in union membership,
and question marks over the adequacy of funding for basic
skills through the further education system, the limitations
of the scheme are beginning to show. The Confederation of
British Industry stresses there are plenty of Government-funded
alternatives but admits that, without a union to advise them,
many employers simply d0 not understand how to get their hands
on the cash - even if they are aware of its existence.
The Learning and Skills Council remains a little-known brand
in small and medium-sized firms despite its size. It spends
almost £9 billion a year on FE and work-related training
in England. Industry points out that it sends £23.4
billion a year on staff training, nearly three times as much
as the LSC.
But the CBI says union branches are often in the best position
to tackle the toughest job in staff development - convincing
employees that they need basic skills help.
The Association of Colleges has urged the Government to loosen
the rules about which basic skills courses are eligible for
public funding, so that more attractive packages can be offered
to workers who would be loath to admit they are learning to
read and write.
(TES, 30 April 2004)
Adults needing help with literacy and numeracy are being
turned away from colleges because the Government's basic skills
drive is running out of cash.
Colleges have called on ministers to loosen the funding rules
so that they can help more adults who struggle to read a bus
timetable or cope with household finances. John Brennan, chief
executive of the Association of Colleges, said increasing
numbers of principals have told him they have been forced
to axe the kind of basic skills courses which attract reluctant
adult learners - including taster courses which do not lead
to qualifications. These include courses which combine literacy
and numeracy with other vocational areas - such as using computers.
Other basic skills courses, while qualifying for cash, are
nevertheless a drain on budgets, he said, because they do
not contribute to level 2 (GCSE A-C equivalent) targets which
have a higher funding priority. As a result, they are vulnerable
as colleges are forced by local learning and skills councils
to priorities.
The AoC argues even level 2 targets are at stake if colleges
are unable to get enough adults literate and numerate enough
to cope with everyday life. The Government needs to grasp
the relationship between basic skills and level 2 achievements
if its strategy is to succeed, Mr Brennan said.
The AoC says the aim of getting more adults qualified in
basic skills and to level 2 will be missed without a more
relaxed funding regime and more cash.
(TES, 26 March 2004)
In 2002, 11 universities and colleges launched pilot schemes
to train teachers to teach literacy, numeracy and English
for speakers of other languages, following the recommendations
of 1999's Moser report. The verdict on these schemes was delivered
by the National Research and Development Centre for Adult
Literacy and Numeracy (NRDC) in March 2003.
NRDC's research review tells us of the general surprise "at
the low levels of personal numeracy and literacy among both
practising teachers and new entrants [to the profession]."
The review reports "a lack of grammatical knowledge even
among practising teachers of many years' experience".
It quotes one teacher trainer: "Many graduates come with
absolutely no subject knowledge. They are native speakers
of English who were not taught grammar at school."
The problem is worse in maths: some groups of trainees include
"no mathematics graduates", and less than a quarter
of the trainees surveyed are qualified beyond GCSE.
New initial teacher education programmes for teachers of
literacy, numeracy and ESOL 2002/3: an exploratory study
is available from www.nrdc.org.uk.
(Guardian, 2 March 2004)
Half the adults in England are so bad at maths they would
fail to score even the lowest grade at GCSE, the most authoritative
survey of their skills so far reveals. The Government backed
research by BMRB International says that 15 million workers
struggle to grasp basic calculations and many also have functional
literacy problems.
The study forms part of the Government's Skills for Life
campaign and was commissioned in response to continuing concern
over low standards of reading and writing among British adults
who lag behind the rest of Europe.
The survey has found that the country has made great strides
in tackling adult literacy problems. Only 5.2 million adults
would fail to pass an English GCSE now - compared with slightly
more than 7 million indicated in the Moser report three years
ago.
The latest study involved more than 8,700 adults in England
aged 16 to 65 who were given basic tests by the researchers.
These included interpreting a bar chart, calculating a percentage
price reduction, or picking a phone number from a list provided.
The survey concluded that 1.7 million (5%) of adults have
literacy skills below Entry Level 3, the standard expected
of 11-year-olds, and 5.2 million (16%) below level 1 (less
than a D-G GCSE). In numeracy, 6.8 million (21%) have skills
below Entry Level 3, and 15 million (47%) below Level 1.
(Guardian, 31 October 2003)
Adult literacy levels
- what do they mean?
Literacy levels by age
| Age group |
% at
Entry level or below
|
% at
Level 1
|
Total %
below Level 2*
|
% at Level 2
or above
|
| 16-19 |
16
|
41
|
57
|
43
|
| 20-24 |
13
|
45
|
58
|
43
|
| 25-34 |
13
|
40
|
53
|
47
|
| 35-44 |
15
|
39
|
54
|
46
|
| 45-54 |
19
|
36
|
55
|
45
|
| 55-65 |
22
|
40
|
62
|
38
|
*calculated by adding % at Entry level and % at Level 1 so figures
may not add up due to rounding
"At the top-line, age was not a strong performance discriminator
in the literacy tests, although some variation between the age
groups was recorded. This is a significantly different picture
from that shown in earlier surveys, such as the International
Adult Literacy Survey, where 55 to 65-year-olds were nearly
twice as likely to be classified in the lowest performance category
... At the time of the IALS survey [this age group] would have
spent virtually all of their key primary schooling years in
wartime when resources were focused elsewhere."
(Skills for Life Survey, DfES, 2003)
Literacy levels by region
| English region |
% at
Entry level or below
|
% at
Level 1
|
Total %
below Level 2*
|
% at Level 2
or above
|
| South East |
12
|
37
|
49
|
51
|
| East of England |
12
|
40
|
52
|
47
|
| London |
19
|
34
|
53
|
46
|
| South West |
14
|
40
|
54
|
46
|
| East Midlands |
16
|
41
|
57
|
43
|
| North West |
17
|
42
|
59
|
41
|
| West Midlands |
18
|
42
|
60
|
41
|
| Yorkshire & Humberside |
19
|
42
|
61
|
39
|
| North East |
22
|
41
|
63
|
37
|
*calculated by adding % at Entry level and % at Level 1 so figures
may not add up due to rounding
Literacy levels by Index of Multiple Deprivation
The Index of Multiple Deprivation is calculated through a weighted
aggregration of six separate deprivation indices: income, employment,
health, education, housing and services access. The scale goes
0 to 100 (with 0 as the least deprived) and peaked at 81 among
respondents to the Skills for Life Survey. IMD values were grouped
into four bands. There was a clear relationship between IMD
value and literacy test performance. The lower the IMD value,
the higher the literacy test score.
| IMD band (least deprived to most deprived) |
% at
Entry level or below
|
% at
Level 1
|
Total %
below Level 2*
|
% at Level 2
or above
|
| Band A: 0-9 (18% of sample) |
8
|
36
|
44
|
56
|
| Band B: 10-19 (28%) |
10
|
40
|
50
|
49
|
| Band C: 20-39 (33%) |
19
|
40
|
59
|
41
|
| Band D: 40+ (20%) |
27
|
42
|
54
|
31
|
*calculated by adding % at Entry level and % at Level 1 so figures
may not add up due to rounding
More information from the Literacy and Social Inclusion
project
Survey critique
International adult literacy consultant Thomas
Sticht produced a critique of the Skills for Life survey on
behalf of the Basic Skills Agency. He stated that the Department
for Education and Skills was wrong to conclude that the survey
indicated success for the Skills for Life strategy. He wrote:
"There are major differences between the International
Adult Literacy Survey tests used to determine the estimate
of 7 million adults with poor literacy skills in 1997 and
the estimate of 5.2 million adults with poor literacy skills
in the Skills for Life survey of 2003 which render comparisons
of the results of the two surveys invalid."
The full critique is available on the New Zealand Literacy
Portal website at www.nzliteracyportal.org.nz.
Following on from the successful Adult Basic Skills Pathfinder
projects, which trialled the new curriculum, standards and national
tests, the Adult Basic Skills Strategy Unit announced ten new
Pathfinders for ESOL (English for speakers of other languages)
in January 2003.
The 12 new Pathfinders are being established in ten areas and
in the Army and the Prison Service. They are intended to test
core teaching and learning materials and activities in a variety
of contexts and learning environments, to ensure that the needs
of a range of ESOL learner groups are addressed. These include
fast-tracked intensive training, ESOL delivered through ICT,
vocationally linked programmes with work placement opportunities,
and flexible delivery to meet the needs of employers and employees.
The ESOL Pathfinder pilots selected will be working on the core
ESOL infrastructure with around 10,000 learners. Information
exchange and dissemination will be ongoing through a dedicated
website and through regional workshops in February and March
2003 and good practice dissemination conferences in June and
July.
Pathfinders are located in:
- West Yorkshire
- East London and Lewisham
- South-east coastal counties
- Brunley and Pendle
- Walsall and Birmingham
- Buckinghamshire and Norfolk
- Exeter and Plymouth
- West London
- South Thames
- Liverpool, Blackburn and the Wirrall
- The Army
- The Prison Service
For more information see www.dfes.gov.uk/readwriteplus.
(Skills for Life Update, Winter 2002/3)
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