Last week, I was at the Association of Colleges conference, where I attended a breakout session called ‘English and maths, the elephant in every room’. For me, having spent almost 30 years working in the adult education sector, the real elephant in the room is the lack of investment or priority given to those adults in the community who lack basic literacy and numeracy skills.
Don’t get me wrong. It was heartening to hear the government’s commitment and investment in English and maths education, including the perceived benefits of the Advanced British Standard. We were told that 64 per cent of young people who don’t achieve good English and maths grades at 16 go on to achieve them by the age of 19. That is truly remarkable and clearly the policy drive to see all students study English and maths to 18 is working.
And yet. What about the 36 per cent who become adults still having not achieved good grades in these vital subjects? Eight million adults in the UK have maths skills lower than those expected of an eleven-year-old, meaning lots of rewarding and high-level jobs will likely never be available to them. These are the adults who come to institutions like mine to improve their skills, yet there has been no funding increase for adults over 19 requiring English and maths for 10 years.
