Skills and education: How well do educational qualifications measure skills?

Publication Details

This report, based on the Adult Literacy and Life Skills (ALL) Survey 2006, examines the link between English literacy and numeracy skills and educational qualifications by looking at the characteristics of people who have high levels of qualifications but low levels of literacy or numeracy, and at those who have high levels of literacy or numeracy despite low levels of qualifications.

It finds that among those with degrees but low levels of English literacy, two thirds were people with English as an additional language, while among those with degrees but low levels of numeracy, half had English as an additional language. Leaving out people for whom English is an additional language, the level of educational qualifications is a good indicator of literacy and numeracy skill levels.

Highly skilled people with low levels of qualifications were more likely to have completed year 12 or 13 at school than to have left school at year 11 or earlier, were more likely to have been born in New Zealand than overseas, and were almost all native speakers of English. We would have expected that there would be a large number of people in older age groups with low levels of qualifications but high levels of skills – people with high ability who left school and went into work in the days before access to tertiary education was widespread. That turns out not to be the case.

Author(s): Roger Smyth and Chris Lane, Tertiary Sector Performance Analysis and Reporting [Ministry of Education]

Date Published: September 2009

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