New Zealand men main reason for bad slump in literacy, numeracy test

By John Gerritsen of RNZ

New Zealand men are the main reason for this country’s bad slump in an international literacy and numeracy test.

Their scores in the OECD Survey of Adult Skills dropped more than those of men in almost any of the other 31 countries that participated, dragging down this country’s overall averages.

New Zealand men’s average literacy score dropped from 281 points to 254, a 27-point fall exceeded only by Poland (-30) and Lithuania (-29).

Despite a run of bad results for teenagers in OECD tests of school children, younger adults were not the sole cause of the bad results.

The average literacy score of 16-24-year-old men fell 30 points and that of 25-44-year-old men dropped 33 points while the average score of men aged 45-65 fell 20 points.

New Zealand women’s literacy scores fell by 15 points, with bigger declines among 16-24-year-olds (-18) and 25-44-year-olds (-16).

In numeracy, men’s average score fell 19 points, with the biggest drops among 16-24-year-old men (-26) and 25-44-year-old men (-25), and a much smaller drop for 45-65-year-olds (-11).

Only men in Poland (-22) and Lithuania (-21) had worse declines in numeracy.

New Zealand women’s average numeracy score dropped only 12 points, with the biggest drop, 14 points, among 16-24-year-olds, followed by 25-44-year-olds with a 13-point drop, and 45-65-year-olds (-11 points).

The OECD’s report said men’s performance declined more than women’s in most countries.

“Literacy proficiency has declined more strongly among men than women. In some countries, women now have higher literacy proficiency than men. In contrast, changes in numeracy proficiency have tended to be similar for both women and men,” it said.

Rural Youth and Adult Literacy Trust manager Jo Poland said she was not surprised by the results.

She said some young people were not getting the support they needed at school.

“Sometimes we’ve had students who are expected to write a summary of tourism in their region and they can’t read a sentence, or write a sentence. If you don’t have the literacy skills you also don’t have the thinking skills because you don’t have access to knowledge and information,” she said.

Poor literacy had a big effect on people’s lives, she said.

Poland said she asked the trust’s first student how her life would be different if she could read and write better.

“I expected her to say things about literacy and instead she said ‘I’d be able to join in conversations, I’d be someone’,” Poland said.

The trust’s student coach coordinator Kaye Healey said a success story this week was a student “elated” that he had written his own Christmas cards.

“That had been his goal all year, to be able to write his own Christmas cards to send to his family and friends,” she said.

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