| Questions 46 to 50 are based on the
following passage. Low levels of literacy and numeracy have a damaging impact on almost every aspect of adult life, according to a survey published yesterday, which offers evidence of a developing underclass. Tests and interviews with hundreds of people born in a certain week in 1958 graphically illustrated the handicap of educational underachievement. The effects are seen in unemployment, family breakdown, low incomes, depression and social inactivity. Those who left school at 16 with poor basic skills had been employed for up to four years less than good readers by the time they reached 37. Professor John Bynner, who carried out the research, said that today's unqualified teenagers would have even greater problems because the supply of manual jobs had dried up. Almost one in five of the 1,700 people interviewed for yesterday's report had poor literacy skills and almost half struggled with numeracy, a proportion in line with other surveys for the Basic Skills Agency. Some could not read even from a child's book, and most found difficulty with following written instructions. Poor readers were twice as likely to be earning a low wage and four times as likely to live in a household where partner worked. Women in this position were five times as likely to be classified as depressed. Alan Wells, the agency's director, said, "The results emphasize the dangers of developing an underclass of excluded people, out of work, increasingly depressed and often labeled themselves as failures. There is a growing circle of marginalization, with the dice loaded against these people and their families. " Only 300,000 people out of more than five million thought to have poor basic skills take remedial courses each year. Mr. Wells said that a "major catch-up initiative" would benefit society as well as the individuals involved. "It is not true that 20 per cent have been getting nothing out of education in the last five years, but maybe 50 years," he said. "The long tail of under-achievement is something we have always had. " The survey is part of the National Child Development Study, which has tracked 17,000 people at five-yearly intervals since 1958. The current study employed eight reading and nine mathematical tests of varying difficulty. They included the ability to read a Yellow Pages directory to find a plumber and measure the floor space of a room. Questions: |