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Nearly half of Aussie adults lack basic reading skills

Nearly half of Aussie adults lack basic reading skills
November 28, 2007 03:26pm


NEARLY HALF the adult population do not have the literacy skills to "meet the complex demands of everyday life and work", according to the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Only 53 per cent of Australians aged 15-74 can find and use complex information on job applications, payroll forms and bus schedules.

According to the bureau’s 2006 Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey, only 47 per cent have the numeracy skills “required to effectively manage and respond to the mathematical demands of diverse situations”.

When it comes to reading and understanding newspaper and magazine articles, 47 per cent of Australians aged between 15 and 74 do not understand the content fully.

[continued - see link]

Surprising.

 

[^CoSMic DoRiS^^]

really? ... wow. is this including recent migrants (read: people with little functional English in the first place)? i'd be very surprised if this was just covering people who were born here/native speakers or whatever.

i can believe the numeracy one more readily, however. my own mental arithmetic skills are shocking for someone who went right through the Australian school system and is now in university. i find it hard to believe that nearly half of Australia can't read, though, somehow :S

 

[wuddie]

well, it is not too much good if you can't read the basic stuff, regardless of where you are born and raised. after all, everything is in english and if you don't have the simple command of it, then you might as well start learning it now.

 

[^CoSMic DoRiS^^]

well, it is not too much good if you can't read the basic stuff, regardless of where you are born and raised. after all, everything is in english and if you don't have the simple command of it, then you might as well start learning it now.

yeah i guess that's true. i'm just struggling to believe that there really are so many people in this country that can't understand what they read in the newspaper... and as for a bus schedule being 'complex information'...

 

[CSI: CRIMES ™]

woh cuold raed taht knid fo sutff, ew Asusies aer lzay ot raed

 

[Pace_T]

yeah well what do you expect. these newspapers are using words that havent been used for fucking centuries. cant they explain things in plain english so we can all understand? its so frustrating!!!

 

[Captain Gh3y]

Nearly half of Aussie adults lack basic reading skills



Surprising.

They get by okay, they just read the Daily Telegraph

By the way if you live in a place with lots of poor people and bogans it probably won't shock you that much.

 

[wuddie]

yeah well what do you expect. these newspapers are using words that havent been used for fucking centuries. cant they explain things in plain english so we can all understand? its so frustrating!!!

which part of which newspaper article don't you understand, want me to explain it to you? if newspapers are so complex as you say they are, then they'd have a target audience of about 0. but clearly they don't, so if anything, the problem is your reading skills.

 

[Magicana]

yeah well what do you expect. these newspapers are using words that havent been used for fucking centuries. cant they explain things in plain english so we can all understand? its so frustrating!!!

Name one.

 

[^CoSMic DoRiS^^]

^ yeah newspapers don't exactly use extravagant language...

i'm still lolling at the idea of a bus timetable being hard to read, though.

 

[Stevo.]

Wait what? Newspapers are hard to read? o_0