When it comes to adult literacy and numeracy, France's end of term report does not make happy reading.
The results of a study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) show worrying grades for France in comparison to 23 other countries including Germany, the UK and the USA.
France ranked third from bottom in the literacy table, doing only marginally better than Spain and Italy, with only 7.7% of French adults achieving the two highest levels of literacy (levels 4 and 5), whilst the global average was 11.8 percent.
The proportion of French adults achieving low scores (21.6 percent) ( less than or equal to level 1 ) is "among the most significant" of the countries surveyed where the average was 15.5 percent. Japan was at the top of the literacy table, with the UK scoring around average and the USA and Germany coming in lower with the below average countries.
France's level of numeracy also represented another area of disappointment. Once again the country scored at the below average end of the table, coming in fourth from bottom, just above the USA. The OECD study found that France had 28 % low skilled adults, where the average is 19% in the OECD.
Japan again topped the table in numeracy, whilst the UK didn’t fare much better than France, ending up amongst the below average results.
'A better educated race'
The OECD study highlighted France as one of the countries where the results differed greatly between generations. The group 45-65-year-olds scored much lower in both literacy and numeracy than their younger counterparts, who on the whole achieved scores much closer to the OECD average.
Social origins also appear to play a large role in literacy levels in France with those born in France faring much better than French people born outside of the country.
The OECD surveyed 7000 French people between the ages of 16 and 65 for the numeracy and literacy study which covered 170,000 people across 24 countries.
by Naomi Firsht
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