Civitas Blog

Agree with Dearieme. One little point about the adult basic skills gap (I know an excessive amount about Government skills policy because of my day-job): To be fair to them, the Government are doing a helluvalot to cut down the number of illiterates and innumerates, but there are significant problems. Two examples:

First, you have to get people to 'fess up to their problems. This is very difficult - it can be embarassing, and people have often developed their own modus operandi to sidestep the problem.

Second, and similar to other 'public services', public funds have driven demand hard against a limited supply of basic skills tutors - it's become a fairly well-heeled profession, along the way probably reducing financial efficiency.

There is almost no-one, I suspect, who is both sane and knowledgeable, who would deny IN PRIVATE the decline you describe.