Ms Inez Bailey:

NALA welcomes the committee’s consideration of adult literacy and is grateful for the opportunity to present this afternoon. My presentation has two parts. The first part is concerned with why we continue to have a significant adult literacy issue in Ireland and the second will outline a new approach to be considered for addressing adult literacy needs at this time.

One in six adults, aged 16 to 64, scored at the lowest level of literacy on a five-point scale in the latest survey that was conducted. That means more than 500,000 adults have difficulty reading and understanding a leaflet, bus timetable or medicine instructions. Similarly, one in four scored at the lowest level of numeracy. This equates to more than 750,000 adults not being able to do basic calculations such as dividing up a bill. Literacy and numeracy needs have grave consequences for the individuals concerned and there is much research to paint the relationship between that and poorer health, weak employment and earning potential, less involvement in society as well as intergenerational disadvantage for children and families. It costs our society and economy in both productivity and welfare dependence.

The results for Ireland chime with the profile of educational attainment levels of the workforce, with more than 445,000 people of working age with less than an upper secondary qualification. Ireland has the highest number of 30 to 34 year olds with higher education and among the highest number of older workers without upper secondary education representing a serious intergenerational rupture. It is time to prioritise the furthest behind first.

The 2012 OECD adult skills survey provides the most up-to-date statistics on the adult literacy and numeracy levels of those of working age since the most recent survey was conducted in 1997. Back then, the poor results for Ireland propelled significant action that saw annual increases in participation and resources for the next decade. However since 2009, and despite the very disappointing results of the adult skills survey in 2012, investment and participation rates have stagnated.

The first national skills strategy in 2007 set the target to reduce the numbers of adults with less than upper secondary education to 7%. While school and higher education performance targets were reached or surpassed, we failed to reach the low skills target and the same target was rolled over into the current national skills strategy to be achieved by 2020, and with 17% of those aged 25 to 65 without an upper secondary qualification, this target will clearly not be reached. That fact alone illustrates the inadequacy of the current approach and resources to tackle the scale of both the adult literacy and numeracy issue in Ireland as well as those with low levels of educational attainment. There remains an outdated view that this challenge will fade with time-based school attendance levels. In reality, there is a crisis in the learning outcomes for many in society, both young and old. While acknowledging the contribution of the Department of Education and Skills, Education and Training Boards Ireland and ETBs, which cater for approximately 60,000 participants in their literacy services, this equates to approximately 12% of those with needs and costs less than approximately €600 per person per annum. It is clear we need a better resourced and more co-ordinated effort by Government.

Currently, NALA is working bilaterally with nine Departments and their agencies on policies aimed at building literacy and numeracy competence in a number of areas, including health and finance. This experience, along with similar recent developments to address the adult literacy and numeracy issue in countries such as the Netherlands, Portugal, Finland and Belgium has guided NALA to call for a whole-of-Government approach that would bring a co-ordinated national effort to radically reducing the numbers of people with literacy and numeracy needs.

Literacy is a barometer of equality and changes people's lives. Ireland can do better to give everyone a fair chance to thrive in their literacy development. This requires investing in people who have not benefited practically at all from our education system during the bust or the boom. This requires greater prioritisation within Government so that we can see an alignment of adult literacy policies and strategies across all Departments.

I thank members for listening. Our written submission has more detail on our vision for literacy.