Lack of basic skills comes at great cost to society - EPALE - European Commission (2024)

By Dorthe Kirkgaard Nielsen - link to LinkedIn profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/dorthe-kirkgaard-nielsen-b491366/

Basic skills are crucial to job opportunities, pay, educational participation, trust, health and democracy. Ever since a 2012 study found that between 531,000 and 1 million adult Danes lacked basic skills in reading, numeracy and problem-solving in technology-rich environments, efforts have been underway to remedy the situation.

Denmark is usually considered to have a highly educated populace, which is why it came as a shock when the OECD PIAAC survey in 2012 found that between 15 to 28 percent of adult Danes between the ages of 16 to 65 lacked basic skills in reading, numeracy and problem-solving in technology-rich environments.

The survey revealed that 583,000 adult Danes possessed reading skills at equivalent to the lowest level in the survey or below, 531,000 adult Danes possessed numeracy skills at the lowest level in the survey or below and that around one million adult Danes possessed problem-solving in technology-rich environment skills at the lowest level in the survey or below.

The Danish Evaluation Institute (EVA) has been among those frequently calling for these findings to be taken very seriously, as a lack of basic skills not only influences an individual’s job opportunities and income; it comes with significant costs to society in general.

Lack of basic skills creates democratic inequality

EVA has previously pointed out that a well-educated workforce is a prerequisite for the competitiveness of Danish companies and the high level of employment that allows Denmark to afford a high standard of welfare. Among the 583,000 adults with low reading proficiency, many have little or no formal education and therefore require continuing and further education, but poor reading skills are a major obstacle in relation to enrolling in such education.

Another issue EVA has previously pointed out is the relationship between poor basic skills and health. Adults with low reading proficiency face more difficulties in obtaining knowledge, and because public health information is often disseminated in writing, these individuals are less able to obtain knowledge about good health habits.

Additionally, EVA argues that a lack of basic skills poses a risk of increased inequality, as democratic inequality becomes an issue when citizens with a lack of basic skills have limited opportunities to follow and get involved in politics. They may find it difficult to understand an agenda for a parent-teacher meeting or the minutes from a general meeting, as well as the political issues of one’s own country. This equality also increases the risk of social conflicts and can weaken a person’s trust in other people and society’s institutions.

“Basic skills are closely linked to employment opportunities and earning a decent salary, but there’s also a correlation between basic skills and societal gains; trust in others, involvement in volunteer work, perception of one’s own political influence and so on,” said Vibeke Jakobsen, senior researcher at VIVE, the Danish Center for Social Science Research.

“People who those basic skills find it difficult to obtain knowledge at a high level and participate in continuing/further education. It also makes it harder to get back into the labour market if their jobs are outsourced or disappear entirely. They often end up being completely excluded from the labour market,” added Malene Vangdrup, head of section at the National Agency for Education and Quality.

Findings from the 2012 survey

A closer examination of the 2012 figures shows that in terms of reading skills, Denmark is ranked below average among the other countries in the survey. Danes’ numeracy skills are above average, while they are somewhere in the middle when it comes to problem-solving in technology-rich environments.

Among adults with poor basic skills, those with short educations, the elderly, unemployed persons and immigrants are overrepresented.

“People from a disadvantaged social background - measured by their parents’ level of education - also stand out along with people with poor health. There are also ethnic Danes who are in good health and who have good jobs and incomes, but the other groups make up those with poor basic skills,” said Jakobsen.

The survey also revealed a major correlation between skills in reading, numeracy and problem-solving in technology-rich environments; generally speaking, if you are good at one of those things, you are good at the others too.

Men and women do not differ from each other in relation to reading proficiency, but men have, on average, better numeracy skills and problem-solving skills in technology-rich environments than women.

“At the same time, the survey showed that these skills increase with age from 16 to around 28. After that, a person’s reading and numeracy skills remain somewhat stable up to the age of 35-40, after which they decline with age up to 65. Problem-solving skills in technology-rich environments decline with age throughout the entire interval from 28-65 years,” Jakobsen said.

Important to focus on preventing skill decay

The survey also showed that just over one-fifth of working Danes believed they were in need of more education or training to perform their current work duties well - a form of under-qualification.

Furthermore, the survey showed that it is not enough to simply be interested in developing skills and competences; it is important to prevent competences from being lost over time.

A change to preparatory adult education (FVU)

The social partners and the government at the time entered into a tripartite agreement in 2017 to improve adult education and continuing and further education while also making such education more flexible. The tripartite agreement was aimed at making it easier for the competences of the Danish labour force to be keep pace with the changes taking place in the labour market. The PIAAC results were used to point to a need for a greater focus on basic skills, including digital skills. A key element in the agreement was therefore the use of joint screening in workplaces and the addition of two new subjects in preparatory adult education (FVU): FVU Digital and FVU English.

Preparatory adult education in Denmark was originally launched in 2000 and aimed at individuals with short educations. Among other reasons, this type of education came about due to another study which found a direct correlation between a person’s reading and numeracy skills and their level of education. Among other courses, this led to the courses FVU Danish and FVU Mathematics being established, which are available to anyone who can benefit from them.

The two new courses established in 2019, FVU Digital and FVU English, were initially reserved for employed persons, but in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the target group has now been expanded to include the unemployed.

“These courses stem from a tripartite agreement, and the focus has therefore also been to combat unemployment,” said Vangdrup.

All the FVU courses provide the participants with an opportunity to upgrade their basic skills - according to their level - from the equivalent of pre-9th grade to 9th grade. Back in 2000 when preparatory adult education was first launched in Denmark, it was primarily intended to give ethnic Danish school dropouts with short educations a new opportunity.

“What we’re seeing today, however, is that 84 percent of people enrolled in FVU Danish are bilingual refugees/immigrants or descendants thereof, and a growing percentage of these users already possess a higher education degree. We believe there is still a large portion of the original target group who need to upgrade their basic skills, but they aren’t finding their way into FVU,” said Vangdrup.

Far from finished

The aforementioned tripartite agreement from 2017 also included an agreement to track the development in adult basic skills in Denmark. The follow-up study was supposed to have been carried out in the period 2020-2022 but was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The data collection for the new study has only just begun. At the same time, there’s also a new PIAAC survey on the way, but right now our most recent data is still from 2011-2012,” said Jakobsen.

In relation to preparatory adult education, Vangdrup believes that other countries can learn something from the joint responsibility taken between Denmark’s government, employers and employees via the tripartite agreement to raise the standard of basic skills among Danish adults.

“In spite of the common starting point, however, we believe we are still far from finished. In other words, we haven’t cracked the code in terms of getting everyone in the target group to take advantage of these courses,” said Vangdrup.

“We’re fairly confident that the new study will only confirm the findings from 2011-2012; that a large part of Denmark’s population still faces challenges due to a low proficiency in basic skills, and that the challenges today are actually affecting even more groups due to changes in the education systems and new labour market demands,” she added.

In a register study performed by the Danish Evaluation Institute in 2020 on the “Use of Preparatory Adult Education”, it was also found that is still “a need for far more adult Danes with poor basic skills to enrol in preparatory adult education. There is also a need to direct a particular focus on getting more ethnic Danes, more men and more adults over the age of 35 to enrol in preparatory adult education.”

Link to the register study:
https://www.eva.dk/voksen-efteruddannelse/brug-forberedende-voksenundervisning-fvu