Skills and education: How well do educational qualifications measure skills?
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: Roger Smyth and Chris Lane, Tertiary Sector Performance Analysis and Reporting [Ministry of Education]Date Published: September 2009
Released on Education Counts: 10 September 2009
7. Conclusion
This report examines the question of whether educational qualifications represent a reasonable proxy for skill levels. The analysis looks at the two groups for whom the relationship between qualifications and literacy and numeracy skills breaks down: those with low skills despite high educational qualifications; and those with high literacy and numeracy despite having no qualifications beyond senior secondary level.
There are three conclusions that can be drawn from this study:
- Qualifications represent a reasonable index for skills, especially among those New Zealanders for whom English is a first language.
- While about 18 to 24 percent of degree-holders have low literacy and 22 to 27 percent have low numeracy, these mismatches are particularly evident among those for whom English is not a first language. This reflects preferences in New Zealand’s immigration policy, in that it reflects high priority for tertiary qualified people. However, it raises questions about the diversity of English language requirements for different groups of migrants.
- There are few people with low qualifications but high literacy and numeracy skills. The age distribution of that group and comparison with the corresponding group in the 1996 IALS survey tends to suggest that participation and achievement in tertiary education is an important factor in developing literacy and numeracy skills, and it also reflects the increasing expectation that people stay longer in education.
These conclusions are explained further below.
The analysis finds that roughly 20 to 25 percent of degree-qualified people have low literacy and/or numeracy. This group disproportionately comprises those who have immigrated to New Zealand and in particular, those whose first language is not English. There is a small number who have no educational qualifications beyond senior secondary school level but whose literacy and/or numeracy skills are high. About 15 percent of those with no educational qualifications beyond senior secondary school level have high skills.
In effect, if we discount those whose first language is not English, qualifications are a reasonable index of literacy and numeracy.
Language is a factor in skills because the ALL survey measures skills across all four skill domains by tests administered in English. In a labour market such as New Zealand’s, skills are dependent on comprehension and facility in English.
The finding that a high proportion of immigrants – especially from non-English speaking countries – are degree-qualified but have low English literacy and/or numeracy helps explain why many well-qualified migrants end up working in jobs unsuitable for their level of education, especially in their early years in New Zealand. Using data from the Household Labour Force Survey, Maani (2009) finds that immigrants are more likely than New Zealand born people to have degrees. But the presence of immigrants in a region appears to have the effect of lowering wages in low-skilled occupations, not in occupations that require a degree. This finding implies that degree-qualified immigrants tend to work in low skill jobs. It matches the finding of Zodgekar (1998) that immigrants are less likely than others in the New Zealand workforce to be working in an occupation that matches their qualifications while Boyd (2003) found that employment rates remained lower for tertiary qualified migrants from Asia and the Pacific, two areas from which New Zealand has drawn many immigrants in recent years.11 It also reflects the preference given in immigration policy in recent years to those who hold higher qualifications. The analysis of ALL data in this study confirms Maani’s and Zodgekar’s findings but also provides an explanation for this phenomenon.
It is interesting to see this finding in the context of migration data. In their study of migration patterns in 27 countries, Dumont and Lemaitre (2005) reports that emigration of degree-qualified New Zealanders is almost exactly balanced by immigration of degree-qualified people. What the ALL data implies is that this balanced exchange of qualified people does not imply balance in the exchange of skills.
The third key finding relates to the age distribution of the high skills/low qualifications group. We would have expected that older New Zealanders would have been over-represented in this group, as the older group had lower expectations of progression from school to tertiary education. This appears not to be the case – either in the 2006 ALL survey or in its predecessor, the 1996 IALS data; in both surveys, more respondents under 45 with low qualifications had high skills. In part, this finding reflects the fact that many of the older respondents in both surveys had left school at year 11 or earlier – an important marker of low skills. Also, given the relatively low access to tertiary education enjoyed by people born before 1950, this finding seems to suggest that participation and achievement in tertiary education is an important means of developing literacy and numeracy skills.
Footnote
- Note that these studies all use data which dates from before policy changes in 2004 which focus on matching immigrants to specific jobs.