Reading skills in EU 'worsening', says report

The EU's education chief has revealed that around a quarter of Europe's 15-year-olds have low reading skills.

Jan Figel' said on Thursday at the launch of an annual commission report on EU education systems that member states must speed up progress in order to get nearer to the EU’s educational goals for 2010.

"Almost one-third of the European workforce has the equivalent of lower secondary schooling and around a quarter of 15-year-olds in the EU have low reading skills. This is really a problem," he said.

Figel' was speaking at a press conference following the launch of the report on the performance of individual countries in five key areas: the completion of secondary education, early school leavers, low achievers in reading, graduates in maths, science and technology and adult participation in lifelong learning.

According to the report, Europe is making progress in all areas except reading literacy, where the share of low achievers in the EU has increased by more than 10 per cent.

At the current rate, he said, only one of the five benchmarks set out in the report will be achieved by 2010.

He blamed national governments for not doing enough to increase literacy rates, saying that there is "a need for more effective national initiatives if we are to achieve our objectives".

The Slovakian commissioner explained that accomplishing the 2010 goals is a vital step in improving levels of overall EU employment in an increasingly competitive world.

However, the report did find that progress has been made in other areas, such as the completion of secondary education, but Figel' stressed that member states have to become more efficient in producing these results.

“It’s improving, but much more needs to be done,” he concluded.

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