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Literacy and Life Skills for Pasifika Adults: Results from the Adult Literacy and Life Skills (ALL) Survey

Publication Details

The 2006 ALL survey was designed to measure the distribution of literacy and numeracy skills among the adult population of New Zealand. The ALL survey included an oversample of Pasifika adults. This design feature has allowed meaningful insights into the distribution of literacy and numeracy skills among the adult Pasifika population of New Zealand.

Author(s): Elliot Lawes [Research Division, Ministry of Education]

Date Published: August 2009

1. Age

This section is concerned with the distribution of skills by age amongst Pasifika peoples.

Figure 1.1 shows the age distribution of Pasifika peoples measured by the ALL and IALS surveys. Figures 1.2 to 1.5 show the distributions of each of prose literacy, document literacy, numeracy and problem solving skill for different age groups among the Pasifika population of New Zealand. In addition, Figures 1.2 and 1.3 show the comparable statistics available from the IALS survey.

Overall, Figures 1.1 to 1.5 indicate that:

  • For all four skill domains (prose literacy, document literacy, numeracy, and problem solving skill), for all reported age groups, the majority (from 62 percent to 95 percent) of Pasifika adults in 2006 had level 1 or 2 skills.
  • For all four skill domains, Pasifika adults aged 25-34 in 2006 had substantially higher skills than both younger and older Pasifika adults.
  • Prose literacy skill for Pasifika 16-to-24-year-olds appeared to decrease from 1996 to 2006, however assessment of the significance of the decline is difficult as the number of Pasifika respondents in the IALS survey was relatively small.7

Figure 1.1: Age, IALS and ALL

Image of Figure 1.1: Age, IALS and ALL.

Note:

  1. To allow statistically robust estimates, 45-54-year-olds and 55-65-year-olds were grouped together.

Figure 1.2: Prose literacy level by age, IALS and ALL
Image of ...
Notes:

  1. To allow statistically robust estimates, 35-44-year-olds, 45-54-year-olds and 55-65-year-olds were grouped together.
  2. To allow statistically robust estimates, levels 3, 4 and 5 were grouped together.
  3. Figures for 35-65-year-olds in IALS were not included because of their low statistical quality (i.e high relative error).

Figure 1.3: Document literacy level by age, IALS and ALL
Image of Figure 1.3: Document literacy level by age, IALS and ALL.

Notes:

  1. To allow statistically robust estimates, 35-44-year-olds, 45-54-year-olds and 55-65-year-olds were grouped together.
  2. To allow statistically robust estimates, levels 3, 4 and 5 were grouped together.
  3. Figures for IALS were not included because of their low statistical quality (i.e. high relative error).

Figure 1.4: Numeracy level by age, ALL only

Image of Figure 1.4: Numeracy level by age, ALL only.

Notes:

  1. To allow statistically robust estimates, 35-44-year-olds, 45-54-year-olds and 55-65-year-olds were grouped together.
  2. To allow statistically robust estimates, levels 3, 4 and 5 were grouped together.
  3. Numeracy was not measured in the IALS survey.

Figure 1.5: Problem-solving level by age, ALL only
Image of Figure 1.5: Problem-solving level by age, ALL only.

Notes:

  1. To allow statistically robust estimates, 35-44-year-olds, 45-54-year-olds and 55-65-year-olds were grouped together.
  2. To allow statistically robust estimates, levels 3 and 4 were grouped together.
  3. Problem-solving was not measured in the IALS survey.


Footnote

  1. See Appendix Figures 1.1 to 1.6. Because of relatively small numbers of Pasifika respondents in the IALS survey, some of the statistics concerning Pasifika peoples from the IALS survey were of quality too poor to report.

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