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

Publication Details

The 2006 ALL survey measured skills in prose literacy, document literacy, numeracy and problem solving. The ALL survey included an oversample of Māori adults. This design feature has allowed meaningful analyses of the distribution of literacy and numeracy skills among the adult Māori population of New Zealand.

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

Date Published: August 2009

4. Educational participation

This section discusses the distribution of skills by educational attainment amongst Māori adults.

Figure 4.1 shows the distribution of those with lower secondary or less education, those with upper secondary education and those with tertiary education7 among Māori adults as measured by the ALL survey. Figures 4.2 to 4.5 show the distributions of each of prose literacy, document literacy, numeracy and problem solving skill by educational attainment for Māori adults in New Zealand. In addition, Figures 4.2 and 4.3 show the comparable statistics available from the IALS survey.

Overall Figures 4.1 to 4.5 indicate that:

  • The proportions of Māori adults with an upper secondary or tertiary level education increased substantially from 1996 to 2006. A corresponding large decrease shows in the proportion with lower secondary or less education8 .
  • For all four skill domains, skill levels are strongly related to education levels. A majority of Māori adults with tertiary education had prose and document literacy skills at level 3 or above. These patterns apply generally to the whole New Zealand population.

Figure 4.1: Distribution of educational participation, IALS and ALL

Figure 4.1: Distribution of educational participation, IALS and ALL

Figure 4.2: Prose literacy level by educational participation, IALS and ALL

Figure 4.2: Prose literacy level by educational participation, IALS and ALL

Note:

  1. The IALS statistics for Tertiary were of too poor quality to report.

Figure 4.3: Document literacy level by educational participation, IALS and ALL
Figure 4.3: Document literacy level by educational participation, IALS and ALL

Note:
  1. The IALS statistics for Tertiary were of too poor quality to report.

Figure 4.4: Numeracy level by educational participation, ALL only

Figure 4.4: Numeracy level by educational participation, ALL only
Note:

  1. The statistics for Lower secondary or less were of too poor quality to report.
Figure 4.5: Problem-solving level by educational participation, ALL only

Figure 4.5: Problem-solving level by educational participation, ALL only

 

Note:

  1. The statistics for Lower secondary or less were of too poor quality to report.

 

Footnotes

  1. Lower secondary or less’ means completed at most Year 10, ‘higher secondary’ means completed more than Year 10 but no more than Year 13, and ‘tertiary’ means participated in a tertiary education programme.
  2. Statistics from the Household Labour Force Survey show that from 1996 to 2006, the percentage of Māori adults aged 15-64 with a tertiary education qualification increased from 28 percent to 37 percent.

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