Anyone who has not stayed at school beyond the Junior Cert should be offered the chance of participating in adult education free of charge, the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Science has said in its first report.
The report, on literacy levels in Ireland, also urges the development of a major programme of adult education with particular participation targets for disadvantaged people; tax relief for certain adult education courses; substantially more resources for the adult literacy service; and systematic literacy testing in primary and second-level schools.
It says literacy schemes reach only 5,000 people, are run on a shoestring and depend almost exclusively on volunteers. There is a "very low participation among men, particularly older men".
More generally, "Ireland has a very poorly developed system of adult education compared to other countries. Only half as many people participate at all. The budget at 1.5 per cent of the total education budget is very restricting."
The report says a recent OECD literacy survey of 11 countries showed 25 per cent of Irish people were at the lowest level of literacy, which is 50 per cent higher than in other advanced countries surveyed.
Ireland also "stands out as a country with one of the greatest literacy problems among 16- to 25-year-olds, even though they have had the benefit of now well-developed opportunities for further education which did not exist 30 years ago.
"There is also worrying evidence of a higher incidence in Ireland of basic reading problems among the school-going population. There are particular problems with transition from primary to secondary schools. Among 14-year-olds, clearly three times as many boys as girls have serious literacy problems."
The OECD survey says people with literacy problems are three times more likely to be out of work and are three times more likely to be among the lowest earners.