Adult Literacy and Numeracy

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Sadly, the OECD report relates only to England and Northern Ireland, so it does not bring into consideration the results for Wales, but it is fascinating to hear those statistics.

There is a social stigma in being unable to read or write, which prevents individuals from seeking the help that they desperately need. Between a third and a half of adults with poor literacy and numeracy want to improve their skills, although less than 5% have actually been to a class. If we are to boost literacy and numeracy rates in the United Kingdom, we must first help learners to overcome the barriers created by social norms, and provide the help that people need right in the heart of our most vulnerable communities.

Over the past two years, I have raised this issue at Prime Minister’s questions. I have posed numerous oral and written questions on the subject to the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Ministry of Defence and the Department for Education. The responses tend, almost without exception, to direct me to the great work that is being done via formal adult education providers, such as further education colleges. But literacy and numeracy are not further education; they are basic education. If we are to make them accessible to the most hard-to-reach individuals, we must think about where, and how, we deliver them. In many cases, a formal educational environment did not work out very well for these people the first time around, so the prospect of going back as an adult is, quiet literally, terrifying.

One exemplar of a formal education provider tackling this issue is in my Gosport constituency. The Out There project, which is funded by Hampshire Learning in collaboration with St Vincent college, provides courses for those wanting to extend their basic skills. These courses are delivered in community centres right on the doorstep of some of our most vulnerable—and valuable—residents. It is the friendly, informal environment, the free courses and the access to free child care which break down many of the frequently cited barriers to adult learning. This is what is giving individuals the confidence to go out and transform their lives for themselves. Between 2012 and 2013, the Out There project attracted 2,427 hard-to-reach learners, making it the most effective scheme of its type in Hampshire. It has even been used as a case study of excellence in the EU-REALM Platform against Poverty initiative. I am proud not only of the recognition that it has received from overseas, but that it has had such a positive impact on my constituency.

The Government have secured continued funding for over 600,000 adults to take maths courses and 600,000 to take English courses, which are essential, but it is also essential that funding continues to flow into projects such as the Out There project, and I hope the Government will continue to maintain their support, both financially and politically.

Clearly, the problems of illiteracy and innumeracy begin in schools. A crucial component of raising standards of literacy and numeracy has to be getting children to think that it matters: 25% of kids do not believe there is a link between reading and success. This failure to value literacy at a very young age has a profound impact on someone’s life chances. Once someone starts down this path, the problems become deeply embedded, and part of the experience is the problem of parents. If a parent has weak literacy or numeracy skills, a child is less likely to be imbued with an aspiration to learn. I agree with the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education—NIACE—which suggests that all schools should develop a family learning policy and all local authorities should form strategies for child and family development.

The percentage of children who, at 16, lack basic literacy remains stubbornly high at around 19%. Of course, ensuring that our children leave school with good literacy and numeracy skills is essential and it must be a priority, but we cannot leave behind a generation of adults who have been failed by the education systems of the past. Low skill adults need a second chance and we must recognise that skills can be developed outside formal education. One way of doing this is through peer-to-peer learning.

In my constituency, there is a truly remarkable man by the quite glorious name of Andy Paradise. He has set up a charity called Read and Grow, which combats illiteracy. Andy was shocked by the very low levels of literacy that he witnessed while he was an inmate in Dorchester prison, and he was inspired to help others less fortunate than himself. Under the ethos of “each one teach one”, Andy and his volunteers at Read and Grow use a reading tool called “Yes we can read” to share their skills in environments such as the local library discovery centre. This book is the brainchild of a brilliant author, Libby Coleman, a former head teacher in some of England’s most challenging schools. “Yes we can read” facilitates peer-to-peer learning. The idea is that anyone who can read can use the tool to teach somebody who cannot. The results are startling.

The London-based homeless charity The Passage piloted a literacy scheme in one of its hostels using “Yes we can read” to help former rough sleepers develop their skills. One of the most amazing side effects was that staff at the hostel noticed a drop in drug and alcohol use by their homeless learners the night before they were due to have a lesson. The scheme has been so successful that Westminster council announced that it would roll out the project to all its hostels. I hope other councils will recognise the huge potential of literacy schemes to turn around the lives of those who have fallen on tough times.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Does she agree that this is another area where local volunteers, whether from a church or a local charity, can assist local councils in helping people who are in such desperate need?

[Caroline Dinenage]

That is the key. The interventions that can take place in the community through volunteers—those who care passionately and those whom others feel they can more easily relate to—are extremely important.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

I will obey Mr Speaker’s admonition to be brief, not least because I do not think I could hope to match the expertise already shown by other hon. Members.

I should like to say a few words about my own constituency experience, but let me first congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) on securing this debate and pay tribute to the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), who made a very thoughtful speech. I agree with him that this issue should not be party political. I agree with him that Governments of every shade have failed to get to grips with dealing with adult education, illiteracy and innumeracy. I hope he will agree with me that the failures of the past must not be the yardstick for the future. When my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans) asks, “When do we deal with this issue?”, I hope we will all say “Now” and I hope the Minister will say “Now”, too, when he replies shortly to the debate.

I am pleased to say that unemployment is falling in my constituency and is now lower than at any time since before the recession. The biggest barrier to entry to employment for young people in my constituency, however, is illiteracy and innumeracy. When I talk to local employers—small and medium-sized enterprises such as light engineering firms and chemicals or plastics firms—they tell me “Yes, we can find new 40 and 50-year-olds to replace the people who retire, but we do not have younger people with the right level of numeracy or literacy to replace our employees.” That presents SMEs in my constituency, and in the country, with a ticking time-bomb, as they will struggle to find the right people with the right skills to replace their employees. Unless we are able to educate young adults and the kids at school now, we will not succeed in the global race about which the Prime Minister and the Chancellor rightly talk.

We also face a challenge with communication. We all deal every day with constituents who raise problems with us via e-mail or letter. All too many of my constituents who write or e-mail me are older people. My office gets lots of phone calls from younger people with housing, immigration or tax issues, but when my office says, “Can you send us an e-mail or write to us to provide more detail so that we can fully understand your problem”, all too many respond by saying, “Actually, we would rather not e-mail and rather not write because we are not comfortable about doing that.” How can we hope to help our constituents when they cannot communicate effectively with us about their problems and concerns?

[Mr Binley]

I believe that our libraries can offer much more training than they are at present. I urge the Minister to look at the connection between education and libraries, particularly with regard to technology. I am one of the people who are bemused by it. It is right to point out that this is a generational issue, but I think we could do much more in our localities through our libraries if only there were more of a joined-up approach to the problem.

[Christopher Pincher]

Mystic Binley demonstrates once again his crystal-ball-gazing skills, as I was just about to come on to the issue of libraries. The local library in my constituency, provided by Staffordshire county council, offers free books to help adult readers. A local volunteer organisation, DIGIT—the dyslexia information group in Tamworth—provides support to those adult learners by providing them with reading buddies. DIGIT does even more by providing help for Tamworth’s young children falling within the scope of the dyslexia spectrum to improve their reading, writing and arithmetic skills. Academisation has also helped. My local head teachers now have more scope to decide what to teach, how to teach it and whom to employ. GCSE results at the Rawlett School, for instance, have improved significantly this year. However, more still desperately needs to be done.

We have the adult and community learning fund—to which I am sure the Minister will refer—the skills for life fund and the traineeship programme, all of them underpinned by Government and supported by money so that young adults can be helped to learn, but I must ask the Minister to consider two other issues. The first is the teaching and knowledge of dyslexia in our schools, which is at best uneven. Tamworth has some good dyslexia teaching schools, such as Wilnecote high school, but others are less good. That is because there are not enough teachers with the right skills, and not enough head teachers who know enough about the scope of the dyslexia spectrum to deal with young people who suffer from the condition. We also need to ensure that there is as much dyslexia teaching in primary schools as in secondary schools, so that dyslexia can be recognised and dealt with as early as possible.

The second issue, which I hope the Minister will consider during his discussions with his colleagues in the Department for Education, is the need for more vertical integration between primary and secondary schools. All too many students in my constituency go to secondary school at the age of 11 with a reading age of seven. They are doomed to failure at GCSE the moment they walk through the door of their secondary school. We need secondary schools to know as early as possible which kids face challenges so that they can help the primary schools to help those children, and the children can go to secondary school with a higher reading age and improve their chances of obtaining better GCSEs. We must ensure that children do not walk into a cliff face at the age of 11 because their secondary schools did not know who they were.

I think that if we do what so many Members today have suggested we do—and if the Minister at least takes on board the two points that I have raised—we shall be able to improve literacy and numeracy, and improve the life chances of so many of our constituents who, for so long, have been disregarded and have not been helped.