It is not everybody, but there are people who had higher education but who nevertheless scored at the lowest level of numeracy in the PIAAC test. We had one of the largest sample sizes of all the countries that participated in the PIAAC study. It is not that it is not being taken seriously, but there has been a sense that we can insulate all of the learning that takes place in school so that it lasts a lifetime, and that is not a reasonable proposition.
For example, I went to school and learned Irish. I do not use those skills now. I cannot speak or read Irish like I did when I went to school. In fairness there was nothing wrong with my education in terms of Irish when I reflect on it but I have not been using those skills and I have lost them.
Many people who were taught or developed their literacy and numeracy in school are no longer necessarily using those skills in everyday life, for example, in the workplace. They are particularly not using them if they are not working. Therefore, they are losing a lot of their competencies, which is what I think the PIAAC is taking up. It is concentrated among those who are coming from socioeconomic disadvantage. It is even worse in those areas and among those with that kind of background. However, those who were surveyed in PIAAC had higher education attainment and scored very badly. Certainly, on the numeracy area, they did particularly badly in how they were able to answer those questions.
We are commonly hearing from employers that they have higher education graduates coming to them who cannot do the job that needs to be done or whose communication skills do not seem to be good enough for what the employer requires. Most of the employer surveys that IBEC has conducted will put the communication skills of graduates as one of the key areas where employers have grave concerns. Therefore, this is not only evidence that is coming up through PIAAC. It is coming up through other modes that the schooling system, or perhaps our expectations of what can be achieved through schooling and higher education, may not be sufficient to insulate persons throughout life or may not match the everyday requirements that we must embrace.
Another example, apart from Irish, I would take would be technology skills and digital skills. I am not a digital native. Those skills were not imparted to me when I was in school, nor in higher education. I therefore had to learn them. I have predominantly learned them through my workplace. If I was not in a workplace that was engaging in those skills, I would not have learned them.
A lot of this has to do with the environment, the exposure and the expectation in society. The literacy and numeracy competencies that are required of adults today are actually very high. It would appear, through the testing, that people are being caught short in terms of their abilities to perform at a high enough level. The level 1 in this survey is the lowest level. While the OECD did not come out and say it, level 3 and above is considered what would be the ideal standard for the population. We have over half of the population below that level and this is just the population in the workforce. We did not test anybody over the age of 64. We are testing persons who are aged between 16 and 25, and in comparison to other countries, we did very badly.
The last question the Deputy mentioned was the alignment with the labour market needs. A number of studies have been conducted in this area, particularly by the National Economic and Social Council, NESC. The studies show, for example, that persons could be put on courses that did not have a vocational component and did not have a labour market value to the same extent. Research we did with the ESRI on this showed that the unemployed were put on courses regardless of whether they had a literacy difficulty. They were put on the same course as somebody who did not have a literacy or numeracy difficulty, yet they benefited to a greater extent in that they were more likely to exit from unemployment than the person who did not have a literacy difficulty. There is something about what is provided to whom and how well it is provided. We are not suggesting that all those who have literacy and numeracy needs need to be removed from vocational programmes. Rather we suggest that the literacy and numeracy needs are built in to all vocational programmes as they are required so that participants can move and progress for them. There is much to suggest that our courses are not sufficiently aligned with labour market needs and there are studies that have been conducted by the NESC and the ESRI on that point.
The intensive learning options are something of an infrastructural issue. We would suggest that the ETBs would find it difficult to establish intensive learning options en masse at this stage due to the fact they have gone through a massive reform programme and are still trying to come out the other end of that. Therefore, we are probably trying to suggest an intervention that will go directly to an individual, such as the paid educational leave idea, or that, in the context of the individual programme to get out of unemployment, they will be provided with a solution. The solution is aimed at and designed for the individual as opposed to a large amount of funding given to ETBs to develop their infrastructure, if that makes sense. We are trying to resource individuals so that the individuals then will be able to see what they need. That is a better driver for ETBs to respond to that demand, as opposed to building up the infrastructure separately, but it does need some attention.
There is a workplace basic education fund that comes out of the National Training Fund. It was set up in the early noughties. It is at €3 million and it has stayed at that for the entire period in question. It is administered through the ETBs but most employers do not know anything about it. It is supposed to be for small and medium-sized employers which can identify employees who have literacy and numeracy needs, and a customised programme can be brought to bear in their settings. That does exist, but it has a very low profile. It is low funded. Employers are not really aware of it and are not committed to looking at their workers from the point of view of getting access to that resource because they do not really know that it exists. We believe it needs a considerable push in its own right. Employers, we would suggest, are often aware that these are issues but are not aware of how they can resolve them and unless it is an easy solution for them, they will not necessarily go out of their way to address it. However, they are aware that it is a problem and are looking for ready-made solutions that can be flexible to their needs.
In the area of numeracy, a review of the adult literacy service showed that there were very low levels of numeracy tuition available, even through the ETB service. We have very few numeracy tutors. We have a very small amount of numeracy tuition available to adults and, as we can see from the PIAAC survey, we now have an even greater problem of numeracy deficits.
What we have been looking at is how to integrate literacy and numeracy development across vocational education programmes. Instead of assuming levels of literacy and numeracy just because children have been in school and are transferring into apprenticeships or other forms of education, such as post-leaving certificate, PLC, programmes, there should be an assessment carried out to identify any literacy and numeracy need at that point and also to identify programmes designed to support literacy and numeracy while they are on apprenticeship programmes or in a PLC setting. At present that does not happen. There is an assumption that everybody who comes into these programmes is able to read and write sufficiently, but there is no national assessment of everybody entering into these programmes. That is a significant problem because participants are in the programme when they discover they possibly have the vocational orientation for the subject that they are studying but do not necessarily have the vocabulary or language. That is what they think they are in college to learn and we would suggest that is what they should be being supported to learn while there.
We have called for an integration of literacy and numeracy across the vocational education curriculum. SOLAS is still at the stage of conducting research about how that might happen. It has been accepted that it should happen but it has not yet started.
Deputy Ryan referred to the budgetary aspect. We are not suggesting that the increase to €50 million in the adult literacy budget would address the issues we raise here as it would merely cater for the additional requirements within the ETB adult literacy service. This paid educational leave idea for only this group of people, which would be over and above that, is the approach we suggest should be taken.
In Scandinavian countries where they identified persons with these needs, they took that cohort of the population and supplied them with an intensive learning opportunity within a year. If they were in the workplace, they took them out of the workplace and supported them to achieve it. If they were unemployed, they got an intensive programme. They isolated the cohorts completely and invested directly in those people and they were quite successful in that regard. We suggest a similar type approach where we support individuals to recognise whether they have needs and motivate them, through something like the paid educational leave idea or a tax credit, to take up the available opportunities, and increasingly use resources such as online learning and blended learning to extend the available learning time.
These programmes exist and are free but they are not very well known at present.
On the question as to where we have come from in terms of the national skills strategy, I cannot recall precisely the relevant figure off the top of my head but it was certainly in the high 20s in 2006. Therefore, we have made progress. The bulk of that progress is coming out from the school system. We have all these younger people who have more than a junior certificate entering the labour force and an older cohort who would have had only a primary certificate leaving it. Therefore, a natural movement is occurring without us doing anything. The national skills strategy outlines that this is the scenario we should aim for if we want to do nothing, based on just using the throughput. However, the strategy sets targets that required people to do something more than that. It required investment in the workers at the time, and that has not been realised.
The higher education targets are set to be surpassed. All the investment in higher education has meant that Ireland is leading across the OECD in terms of tertiary participation rates. We are not just above average but at the top. That is how well we are doing in that area. We have noted the achievements in the mainstream schooling system. This part of the system, for those people who have not had the benefits of the earlier parts, has been left behind. Even with the targets that were set, we have not come close to achieving them. There is a serious question to be asked in this regard. I can suggest some reasons. Investment is a very big factor on my list, but we do not know enough about why we have been so poor in achieving the targets for the lower-skilled group under the national skills strategy. What we are going to do differently will be a great challenge.
On the issue of motivation, when we started our work, we launched major campaigns. At that time, a tiny percentage, approximately 5,000 people, were in adult literacy programmes. As soon as we made opportunities available, people came forward. They were not very hard to reach when opportunities were put in front of them. They were not that difficult to motivate when they could actually hear from their peers that they were coming back into education. Ms Phelan is a case in point. She is doing great advocacy work and showing others the benefits of returning to education. While motivation is a matter for us all, it has to be factored into any new strategy. Paid educational leave, the tax credit or another incentive to motivate people to make an effort might go some of the way towards covering the costs of returning to education.
There is still a stigma associated with literacy and numeracy. As I stated, 55,000 people have returned to education over the past decade or so. That is a considerable number to avail of an opportunity when put in front of them. We have every sense that more people will come forward. That is actually breaking down the stigma. We go to the National Ploughing Championships every year where thousands of people say to individuals such as Ms Phelan that they have a problem and ask what they can do about it. What we are really saying today is that we are currently doing very little to support these people, be they unemployed, working or out of the labour force. It is a minimal, basic service. We are not making it easy for people at all. This has a great impact on them and their families. We also know that we are not benefitting from the unleashing of their potential. It is not just about investment. There is a lot that could be done on the basis of good will in terms of saying this is a matter the country wants to address and that we want to change the legacy of having people with the needs in question.
Let me return to the issue of Princess Laurentien. She is on the record as having said the Netherlands pretty much copied most of what was augmented through NALA's own work with the Department of Education and Skills in the noughties. However, the Netherlands was able to invest much more heavily in this. Princess Laurentien has drawn attention to the notion that schools are doing the best they can although we need to recognise there are children who are still struggling. A considerable number of people leave school and become de-skilled, irrespective of how long they were in school. This is having an impact at European level. It is at this level that Princess Laurentien is working. NALA is now funded by SOLAS under the further education and training authority legislation. Our budget from that organisation is on the decline. We have lost approximately one third of our funding since the crash. We are down to about €1.5 million coming out of the amount of money that goes into adult literacy at present.
