I have seen reports recently that relate to the literacy levels of young people in some of the most developed nations. .. like the UK and Australia. These reports suggests that these countries are moving in the the wrong direction in international league tables
Remember we are talking about ‘developed’ nations with a long history of compulsory schooling.
The problem (it seems to me) is that education has become a ‘political football’, used for ‘social engineering’ purposes. Certainly in the UK, we have tried to create an educational system in which no-one can fail … and all are ‘successful’.
To do this we have ‘equalised’ to the lowest common denominator. So, instead of giving every student the education they need to stretch themselves to the best THEY can be, we give everyone a relatively unsophisticated and certainly non-stretching education with assessments they have a very good chance of ‘excelling’ at.
We are now reaping the results of this policy – finding that recruits to the workforce do not have basic numeracy and literacy levels. Some of these people are very smart – just not well-educated.
And these things take a long time to turn round. Who is going to create the high-skilled workforce needed to secure my well-being through old age?