Committee Reports > List of Committees > Joint > 2006 > Committee on Education and Science > Report No. 04 - Adult Literacy in Ireland

ANNEX II INTERNATIONAL ADULT LITERACY SURVEY: SUMMARY RESULTS

Comparison of Ireland’s Performance in IALS With Other Countries in IALS Proportion of the adult population with Level 1 (lowest) literacy

In the International Adult Literacy Survey, for which the Irish results were published in 1997, Ireland had the second largest proportion of adult who scored at the lowest level on the five-level scale.

Since then, the OECD has carried out another international survey⁴⁵, the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALLS) which addresses all three dimensions covered in the earlier IALS and includes problem-solving as well. Ireland was not represented in this survey and in fact, only four of the countries surveyed for IALS were also surveyed for ALLS: Canada, French-speaking and German-speaking Switzerland; and the USA and therefore only in these countries can changes in the literacy levels of the population be identified. Nevertheless, some of the conclusions supplied by the experience of the other countries are interesting:

•There were small reductions in the proportion of people scoring at the lowest level of literacy;

•There were also reductions in the proportion of people scoring at the highest levels;⁴⁶

•Only in German-speaking Switzerland was there a general upward shift (albeit a small one) in the levels at which people scored; in the other countries, the proportions scoring at levels 2 and 3 increased;

•Age and level of education contribute to literacy levels but the relationship is imperfect:⁴⁷ other factors have an impact;

•There are still large portions of the adult populations with poor foundation skills who are not being reached by the services; yet there are variations between countries, which suggest that lifelong learning policies do make a difference.⁴⁸

⁴⁵ OECD (2005) Learning a Living: First Results of the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Programme, Paris, Ottowa: Statistics Canada/OECD.

46 Ibid, page 48.

47 Ibid, page 58, 59

48 OECD (2005) op. cit., page 80.