Government literacy target is unambitious, says Cori

Government plans to reduce adult illiteracy to between 10 to 15 per cent before 2016 have been described as "illogical, unambitious and unacceptable" by the justice department of the Conference of Religious of Ireland (Cori). It also says it indicates a complete lack of interest in addressing the issue seriously.

In its latest policy briefing, Monitoring Social Partnership, to be published today, Cori Justice gives a progress report on Government implementation of commitments made last year in the Towards 2016 national agreement. It points out that the Government target states that the proportion of the population aged 16-64 with restricted literacy will be reduced "to between 10-15 per cent by 2016".

It continues that "in practice this means that Government accepts that up to half a million people of working age will be illiterate in 2016".

It rejects this target as "illogical, unambitious and unacceptable" and says it suggests "a complete lack of interest by Government in seriously addressing the adult literacy problem".

Fr Seán Healy, director of Cori Justice, said that "if Ireland's economic and social situation is to improve, Ireland's labour force must be up-skilled and educated to play a full part in such development".

Having so many illiterate, he said, would have a very negative effect on economic development. It would also produce a situation marked by high unemployment levels, high poverty rates and substantial social exclusion.

"This is totally unacceptable in a society which, for the first time in its history, has the resources to tackle these problems effectively and comprehensively," he said.

The target on illiteracy "should be revised downwards dramatically and the necessary resources committed to ensuring that the revised target is met".

More generally, he found that some Government commitments made in Towards 2016 have been honoured, "most notably the raising of the lowest social welfare rate for a single person to 30 per cent of gross average industrial earnings in budget 2007".

He said "commitments on primary care units, on social housing and on Third World aid are among others that have been progressed satisfactorily. These are substantial commitments and have involved major additional expenditure". But he questioned whether the pace in honouring some commitments was adequate, particularly where the carers' strategy, child poverty and childcare, and the development of shadow national accounts, were concerned.

The full text of Monitoring Social Partnership is at www.cori.ie/justice.