What the OECD’s Survey of Adult Skills Means for Essential Skills

According to the latest OECD survey, the progress in developing essential skills in England is mixed. While young people’s skills have improved, 8.5 million adults still need support. Alex calls for government, employers, and educators to work together to address these gaps.

Current State of Essential Skills in England

The OECD’s latest Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) provides an opportunity to assess the state of play on essential skills needs in England’s working-age population, including literacy and numeracy.

The OECD data show that England’s ranking compared to other OECD countries has improved, particularly in numeracy, since the previous survey conducted in 2013. However, while the 2013 survey estimated around nine million adults in the UK (England and Northern Ireland) had low literacy and/or numeracy skills, the new data show similar proportions of adults with low literacy and numeracy skills. Still, 8.5 million adults in England could benefit from improved essential skills.

Policy Impact and Youth Improvements

The PIAAC is an important tool for driving essential skills policy. The 2013 results highlighted the low literacy and numeracy skills of young people entering the labour market, leading to a policy response which focused on strengthening English and maths requirements in 16 – 19 technical education and apprenticeships, including policies such as the English and maths condition of funding. So, it’s good news that the new PIAAC shows that young adults (aged 16 – 24) have significantly improved skills.

Adult Education Challenges

However, the previous government neglected other important findings from the 2013 survey. The focus on young people – important though it was – was not matched by a focus on adults, as investment in essential skills provision through the Adult Education Budget was cut by over 50%, and participation in adult literacy and numeracy learning declined by over 60%. This helps explain why the latest PIAAC results show millions of adults could benefit from support.

Survey Limitations and Broader Implications

Some groups, such as prisoners, homeless people, and adults aged 65+, are not included in the survey, yet we know that there are high rates of literacy and numeracy needs within these groups. This highlights that the data may only provide a conservative estimate of the extent of essential skills needs, and this government must take this opportunity to drive further action.

The Importance of Essential Skills

Good essential skills should be central to the Government’s ambitions for opportunity and economic growth for young people and adults. They should also be at the heart of metro mayors’ work, skills, health and place agendas in devolved areas.

Good literacy, numeracy, and digital skills underpin policy ambitions for a more highly skilled workforce. The evidence shows that essential skills qualifications support progression to further and higher-level learning. Without focusing on essential skills, higher-level skills ambitions will fail without progression pathways for those with lower qualifications.

Essential skills bring economic benefits, such as improved employability, earnings and progression to better quality work. Crucially, good essential skills underpin a range of social outcomes, enabling people to manage their health and access other essential services and boosting people’s ability to engage critically with misinformation and false narratives encountered daily online.

Recommendations for Action

Tackling pervasive low-essential skills must be a collective responsibility – between politicians and decision-makers at national and devolved levels, learning providers and employers. Here are a few suggestions to start with:

The Government must make essential skills a central pillar of its forthcoming post-16 strategy. The Government should consider how new policies, such as the Skills and Growth levy, could support an expansion of essential skills learning in the workplace by making essential skills fundable as non-apprenticeship training.

City regions should consider the role of essential skills in supporting their priorities for work, health and skills and creating vibrant communities. That should mean ensuring that skills strategies are focussed at least as much on residents with qualifications at Level 2 and below as on higher-level skills.

Essential skills are part of employers’ skills needs, too, and employers should consider how they can help identify essential skills needs in the workplace and support employees in accessing learning.

Learning providers can also play a part by ensuring their priorities include adult essential skills, particularly literacy and numeracy, in their curriculum. They should engage residents in areas of high essential skills needs and work with commissioners and funders to develop new, flexible and accessible approaches.

By Alex Stevenson, Deputy Director, Learning and Work Institute