Baroness Rebuck – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Rebuck on 2016-02-04.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact on the UK economy of poor literacy skills on the part of 16–24 year-olds.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

There are a number of ways in which the Government assesses the impact of poor literacy on the economy.

On 28 January 2016, the OECD published its report ‘Building skills for all – a review of England’. The report was commissioned by BIS following the publication of the OECD’s Survey of Adult Skills in 2013. Key findings from Building Skills for All are:

• Nine million adults in England have poor basic skills.
• Overall, in terms of proportion, this is average for OECD countries, but England’s young people lag behind other countries.
• A third of 16-19 year olds in England have poor basic skills – three times the proportion than in high performing countries.
• Eliminating the tail of low achievement could increase long term productivity growth by around 0.5%.

The BIS Research Paper 195 ‘Estimation of the labour market returns to qualifications gained in English Further Education’, published in December 2014, shows that there are higher returns to qualifications achieved at younger ages and that English (and maths) Level 1 and Level 2 qualifications provide an additional wage uplift for achievers of higher learning aims. Increased earnings and employment rates following training provide an indication of the positive impact on the economy of improving skills.

In 2012, when the PIAAC carried out the survey fieldwork for both reports, only 70% of 16-19 year olds were participating in education and training that leads to a formal qualification; compared to almost universal participation in some other OECD countries. Since then the participation age in England has been increased to age 18 and action has been taken to improve GCSE qualifications and raise standards in post-16 education. These reforms have been welcomed by the OECD in its latest report. .

Since changing the requirement for all learners who did not achieve a Level 2 in English and maths by the age of 16 to continue to study these subjects as part of their 16-19 study programme, we have seen a positive effect on participation and attainment. In 2014/15, 97% of 16 to 19 year olds without GCSE A*-C English and/or maths attending an FE institution continued their study of these subjects. In 2015, for 17-year-olds and over, entries for English rose by 23% (30% for maths). As a result, last year there were over 4,000 more GCSE passes at grades A*-C in English by students aged 17 and over (7,500 more maths passes).

On 5 February 2016 we published a new report on the impact of poor English and maths from the perspective of employers. Some key findings are:

• The vast majority of employers surveyed reported no issues with the literacy of their employees.
• Employers that do offer basic skills training reported positive impacts on aspects of work such as the number of errors (63%), better capacity to meet statutory requirements (58%), being able to introduce new processes (52%) and being able to produce higher quality products (51%).

The full report can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/poor-basic-literacy-and-numeracy-effect-on-employers

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