Illiteracy – a national emergency

The report of the EU expert group on literacy should be right at the top of our national agenda. The Malta Council for Economic and Social Development should discuss it and decide how the social partners: employers, unions and civil society are going to work together on a strategic national action plan to ensure that our young people leave school at least functionally literate.

Literacy is not the sole responsibility of teachers and should not be restricted to initiatives in schools and in the education system. It takes a whole nation to make its citizens literate and that is why it is crucial to engage everyone in an ongoing national effort to combat the functional illiteracy that is constraining our democracy and economic growth and resulting in poverty and social exclusion.

The ability to read and write a few sentences is not enough in today's world. Functional literacy is essential and multiple literacy for everyone is what we should be aiming for. Having at least 36% of our young people lacking the literacy needed to function effectively in today's world is a national emergency. Maltese boys are the lowest achievers in the EU. The high-level group's report highlights a significant gender gap, with 13.3% of low achievers among girls compared with 26.6% for boys. The gender gap is smallest in the Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium, and highest in Malta, Bulgaria and Lithuania.

Functional illiteracy has a strong impact on citizenship and democracy, on social justice and on economic growth. As the group reports "literacy is a 'big deal' because good literacy skills are essential for improving people's lives, and for promoting knowledge, innovation and growth". The group concludes that changes in the nature of work, the economy and society more generally mean that literacy is more important than ever in today's world and that Europe should therefore aim for 100% functional literacy among all its citizens.

The report of EU experts highlights the importance of literacy:

• The labour market requires ever higher literacy skills (by 2020, it is estimated that 35% of all jobs will require high-level qualifications compared to 29% today);
• Social and civic participation are more literacy-dependent in the digital world;
• The population is ageing and their literacy skills, including digital literacy skills, need updating;
• Poverty and low literacy are locked in a vicious circle, each fuelling the other;
• Growing mobility and migration are making literacy more and more multilingual, combining a wide range of cultural and linguistic backgrounds.

The 80-page report includes a raft of recommendations, ranging from advice for parents on creating a culture of reading for pleasure with their children, to siting libraries in unconventional settings like shopping centres and the need to attract more male teachers to act as role models for boys, who read much less than girls. It also makes age-specific recommendations, calling for free, high-quality early childhood education and care for all, more specialist reading teachers in primary schools, a change of mind-set on dyslexia, arguing that almost every child can learn to read with the right support, and for more varied learning opportunities for adults, especially in the workplace.

More specifically, the experts say that for young children it is essential to implement family literacy programmes to improve the reading and writing skills of both parents and children. Such programmes are very cost-effective. Investment in high-quality early childhood education and care is one of the best investments countries can make in Europe's future human capital. Children who have benefited from effective early educational experiences are more literate and do better in school.

The experts recommend that primary schools recruit more specialist reading teachers and low performing pupils should get individual assistance as soon as the need arises. School libraries should have reading materials which are attractive and challenging for all age groups, and the use of ICT tools and digital reading should be encouraged in class and at home.

Teenagers need more diverse reading material, from comics to set literary texts and ebooks to motivate all readers, especially boys. Cooperation between schools and businesses should be promoted to make literacy learning more relevant to real-life situations. The taboo around adult literacy problems needs to be broken. NGOs, media, employers, societal organisations and celebrities all have a role to play in communicating more widely about adult literacy and its solutions.

Language learning is not only a tool of communication, but a means of building mutual understanding. The report states more tailored support is needed, based on an understanding of individual language and literacy needs.

A new Labour government will set up a literacy unit to create, plan and coordinate the implementation of a national strategy to tackle the problem of functional illiteracy in Malta. Between 1996 and 1998, we laid the groundwork for the first national survey on literacy in all of our schools. We had a lot of help from Professor Greg Brooks, who is one of the EU experts on literacy. Our initiatives on literacy were spearheaded by Dr Charles Mifsud, who has been unfortunately sidelined in the last 12 years.

The lack of consistent and coordinated action to spread functional literacy in our society has had the result of placing Malta at the 25th position out of the 27 EU states, with an illiteracy rate of 36% among young people in Malta. Only Romania and Bulgaria have a higher percentage of illiterate youths.

The EU experts' report analyses each Member State's problems and also provides recommendations for schools and society in general. The report also highlights the actions that governments should take on a national level, as well as recommendations for implementation by entrepreneurs.

The high-level group report on literacy has been described as a 'wake-up call' for Member States to address literacy crisis, will Malta respond adequately to this call or go on 'business as usual' deluding ourselves that we are a centre of excellence and so what the experts say has no relevance for us?

Evarist Bartolo is shadow minister for education