erich wallner spotted this on the Guardian Unlimited Observer site and thought you should see it.<br><br>-------<br>Note from erich wallner:<br><br>Anderswo ist auch nicht alles eitel Wonne ...<br>-------<br><br>To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited Observer site, go to http://www.observer.co.uk<br><br>Level of illiteracy among young is above that of 1912 EducationGuardian.co.uk <br>Tracy McVeigh, education editor<br>Saturday August 18 2001<br>The Guardian<br><br><br>The reading and writing skills of Britain's young people are worse than they were before the First World War, according to research released yesterday. <br><br>Despite the Government's efforts to improve the nation's literacy skills, the study found that 15 per cent of people aged 15 to 21 are 'functionally illiterate'. In 1912, school inspectors reported that only 2 per cent of young people were unable to read or write.  <br><br>The findings of the researchers, led by Professor Loreto Todd at the University of Ulster, echo statistics produced by the National Skills Task Force last year, which estimated that seven million adults were functionally illiterate.  <br><br>The study also found a high level of arrogance among the 15- to 21-year-olds surveyed. Seven out of 10 believed they were 'pretty good' at getting words right. But when they were asked to spot 14 mistakes in a piece of text, none were able to identify them all. Girls did better than boys - as they have been doing in exams for more than a decade - but were still unable to pinpoint more than two-thirds of the mistakes correctly.  <br><br>Boys only managed to spot 54 per cent of the mistakes. Despite this, men   were more likely to rate themselves as 'excellent' spellers than women.  <br><br>With GCSE results - including those for English language - being published next week, the findings suggest that there is a stubborn section of school leavers left untouched by attempts to give them even the most basic skills.  <br><br>The Government has promised to spend millions of pounds on improving adult literacy, and the study showed that young people were aware of the damage an inability to spell can do. Seven out of 10 said poor spellers were seen as 'careless, young, immature and unreliable'.  <br><br>Despite this, the research - which was commissioned by Bloomsbury, the publishing house - suggested that spelling skills are getting worse. When presented with the same word spelt slightly differently three times, 90 per cent of 41- to 50-year-olds got the right answer, compared with just 65 per cent of 15- to 30-year-olds.  <br><br>Older people were also unimpressed with the craze for mobile phone text messaging, believing it caused spelling to deteriorate.  <br><br>A spokeswoman for the Department for Education and Skills said: 'Last year 99 per cent of all 15-year-olds in schools who took GCSE English passed it and have the equivalent of functional literacy or above.'<br><br>Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited<br>--<br>Diese Liste wird vom Computer Communications Club (http://www.ccc.at) betrieben. Um sich aus der Liste austragen zu lassen, senden Sie ein e-mail an majordomo@ccc.at mit dem Befehl "unsubscribe lehrerforum" im Nachrichtentext.<br>