Illiteracy in England

In 1999 it was estimated that one in three adults in England could not work out the area of a room and one in five adults could not find a plumber in the yellow pages. (See BBC 1999). In 2009 little had changed (See BBC 2009 and charts at Department for Children Literacy and Numeracy site).

The discussion of this problem revolved entirely around the quality of education. However, perhaps someone should ask why the problem has not improved over the past 10 years. A great deal of money has been spent on adult literacy so either adult literacy training is hopeless or vast numbers of new illiterate adults are entering society from schools or abroad or both.

In fact the adult literacy programmes have done quite well. Around 7% of the population of England arrived over the past 10 years from overseas (See Origins of the English) and a minimum of about 2 million of these new arrivals in England do not have English as a first language. In reality the adult literacy schemes have almost certainly reduced illiteracy amongst adults who were in England in 1999 by about 30% or 2 million. Unfortunately this 30% were then replaced by people for whom English was not a first language between 1999 and 2009.

The good news is that the children of some immigrant groups can do quite well. For example, the children of Indian immigrants statistically outperform the indigenous population. There is some concern however about the performance of the children of Caribbean parents (See National Literacy Trust: Literacy and education levels by ethnic group and populations).

What of the future? If there are say, 0.3 million adults entering the UK from abroad annually then in 30 years about 10 million adults will have origins where English is not their native tongue. It will probably be the case that at least 3 million of these will never be fully "native speaking" citizens. Furthermore, about 1-2 million adults can be added to this number as a result of organic illness and birth defects so around 4-5 million adults will always suffer from literacy problems in the UK, without medical advances or an end to immigration. This means that Alan Johnson's promise to end adult illiteracy by 2020 (Guardian 2006) is a blatant and knowing lie.

BBC 1999. Education: England's 'staggering' adult illiteracy. March 25, 1999. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/302972.stm

BBC 2009. Too many cannot read and write. 29 January 2009 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7856001.stm

Guardian 2006. Minister promises to end adult illiteracy by 2020. Rebecca Smithers. The Guardian, Thursday 15 June 2006.

See

The predicted population of Britain

Child poverty in the UK

Comments

The Falklands have always been Argentine - Las Malvinas son Argentinas

"The Falklands have always been Argentine" is taught to every Argentine child as a matter of faith. What was Argentina during the time when it "always" possessed Las Malvinas? In this article I will trace the history of Argentina in the context of its physical and political relationship with "Las Malvinas", the Falkland Islands. The Argentine claim to the Falkland Islands dates from a brief episode in 1831-32 so it is like Canada claiming the USA despite two centuries of separate development. This might sound like ancient history but Argentina has gone to war for this ancient claim so the following article is well worth reading. For a summary of the legal case see: Las Malvinas: The Legal Case Argentina traces its origins to Spanish South America when it was part of the Viceroyalty of the Rio del Plata. The Falklands lay off the Viceroyalty of Peru, controlled by the Captain General of Chile. In 1810 the Falklands were far from the geographical b

Practical Idealism by Richard Nicolaus Coudenhove-Kalergi

Coudenhove-Kalergi was a pioneer of European integration. He was the founder and President for 49 years of the Paneuropean Union. His parents were Heinrich von Coudenhove-Kalergi, an Austro-Hungarian diplomat, and Mitsuko Aoyama, the daughter of an oil merchant, antiques-dealer, and huge landowner family in Tokyo. His "Pan-Europa" was published in 1923 and contained a membership form for the Pan-Europa movement. Coudenhove-Kalergi's movement held its first Congress in Vienna in 1926. In 1927 the French Prime Minister, Aristide Briand was elected honorary president. Personalities attending included: Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann and Sigmund Freud. Figures who later became central to founding the EU, such as Konrad Adenauer became members . His basic idea was that democracy was a transitional stage that leads to rule by a new aristocracy that is largely taken from the Jewish "master race" (Kalergi's terminology). His movement was reviled by Hitler and H

Membership of the EU: pros and cons

5th December 2013, update May 2016 Nigel Lawson, ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, recently criticised the UK membership of the EU , the media has covered his mainstream view as if he is a bad boy starting a fight in the school playground, but is he right about the EU? What has changed that makes EU membership a burning issue? What has changed is that the 19 countries of the Eurozone are now seeking political union to escape their financial problems. Seven further EU countries have signed up to join the Euro but the British and Danish have opted out. The EU is rapidly becoming two blocks - the 26 and Britain and Denmark. Lawson's fear was that if Britain stays in the EU it will be isolated and dominated by a Eurozone bloc that uses "unified representation of the euro area" , so acting like a single country which controls 90% of the vote in the EU with no vetoes available to the UK in most decisions. The full plans for Eurozone political union ( EMU Stage

Political Thoughts - the magazine

Search This Blog