Last year the UK Government commissioned a pretty big survey called Skills for Life. The survey covered the two important skills that adults need – language and numeracy. The findings were pretty surprising and quite worrying for a modern nation. Here’s a clip from the infographic provided by the report -
As you can see the figures are quite surprising, in London for example 17% of respondents had a literacy level of a 9-11 year old. The same result was recorded for the North East, but throughout the country around 10% of Adults has a literacy level worse than a primary school child. The sample for this study was adults aged 16-65.
In Maths the survey found even more worrying results in many areas, 25% of adults who took part in the survey had the mathematics skills of a 9-11 year old. If these figures were transposed onto a national level that would mean 8 million UK citizens are lacking even basic numeracy skills.
This of course will cause many problems for those involved. They will be seriously disadvantaged in careers, in health and of course as parents. This latter role is likely to see these disadvantages in many cases passed down the generations through their children.
For those who may find themselves with adult literacy or numeracy problems – it’s worth checking out the BBC education site. There’s loads of online resources which can help people brush up on their skills in the basics of Maths and English. Most items are accessible internationally but some areas are restricted to UK only but you can use resources like this page http://www.theninjaproxy.org/tv/how-to-use-a-bbc-iplayer-proxy/ to show you how to change your IP address and access through a UK server very easily.