Karen Evans and Edmund Waite
Institute of Education, University of London
In the United Kingdom, the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) findings published in the 1990s indicated that up to 20 per cent of the adult population had low levels of functional literacy, leading first to the Moser Report (1999) and then to the national Skills for Life strategy (2002-7). The Leitch Report (2006) has emphasised that the UK economy will for the next 30 to 40 years depend largely on employees already in the workforce today. Many of these employees (approximately onequarter) have relatively few, or even no, formal qualifications.
In a review of international literature on the
impact of workplace basic skills training as
measured by their effects on wages and
employment probability, Ananiadou, Jenkins
and Wolf (2003) draw out the conclusions that
poor literacy and numeracy skills reduce earnings
and the likelihood of being in employment,
even when individuals have good formal
qualifications. Between the ages of 23 and 37,
almost two-thirds of men in the UK and three
quarters of women with very low literacy skills
had never been promoted, compared to less
than one-third of men and two-fifths of women
with good literacy skills. For women the ratio
drops, but is still very significant. There were
smaller but still very significant differences
with respect to numeracy skills. In addition,
these UK researchers state that “there is also
good evidence to suggest that general training
provided at the workplace has a positive impact
on individuals’ wages, particularly when this
training is employer provided rather than off
the job”
(p. 289) although there is little robust
evidence available about the specific effects on
wages of workplace basic skills training. The
accumulated evidence does, however, indicate
that training provided at and through the workplace
can play a significant role in increasing
levels of workforce skills.
The specific contributions of informal learning are rarely addressed in large scale evaluations of workplace training but are nevertheless held to be significant by many workplace researchers. As Billet (2002) points out the more worksite activities a worker can access and engage with, the more learning that may result. Nevertheless, these learning opportunities are not distributed equally across a particular organization; those individuals confined to routine work, and whose roles may be less valued may have fewer chances to expand their learning. Evans et al. (2006) have focused particularly on this in relation to basic level employees. For basic workers, the relationship between formal ‘essential skills’ courses and their spin-offs in informal learning will depend crucially on organizational environments and the extent of distribution of opportunities for informal learning. The tacit dimensions of knowledge and skill are also germane to the exploration of informal-formal learning relationships.