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Two requirements need to be met in order to increase the proportion of adult New Zealanders with the literacy and numeracy skills required to cope with the demands of everyday life and work in a complex, advanced society. These are, first, an effective mechanism for identifying people whose literacy and numeracy skills are below an identified minimum, and, second, a strategy to support these people to strengthen their skills. This project is focused on the former and explores the relationships between four different measures of literacy and numeracy in New Zealand. These measures are the Adult Literacy and Life Skills (ALL) survey, the Literacy and Numeracy for Adults Assessment Tool (Assessment Tool), the literacy and numeracy requirements for National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) and the New Zealand Curriculum National Standards (National Standards).

No formal recommendations were made in the report, but some suggestions to consider were put forward. These include: (1) confirmation of the minimum levels of literacy and numeracy required by New Zealand adults to operate in an information-rich society; (2) ensuring any requirement is properly and rigorously assessed; (3) credentialing literacy and numeracy independently from qualifications; (4) the introduction of formal requirements for literacy and numeracy to be met by the end of Year 10, prior to undertaking formal qualifications.

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This report describes a project that supplemented workplace learning with online numeracy activities. It found that simple online tasks that trainees completed in their own time helped them to improve their numeracy skills. This research sought to identify an efficient and cost-effective way to strengthen the numeracy of workers undertaking a vocational qualification. The research comprised three major phases: (1) the identification of critical factors that enable the provision of effective numeracy training through a review of international literature; (2) an investigation of one industry training organisation (ITO) as a context for adult numeracy learning; this resulted in the identification of an appropriate group of workers to take part; and (3) case studies investigating an approach using online learning activities with five workers in the concrete industry. The report summarises the findings from this research, and is structured in three sections representing the main phases of the project.

Published summary from the Education Counts website. Show less

This report identifies critical factors for successful numeracy learning in tertiary education. It is based on the latest teaching and learning research from New Zealand and overseas. It sets out the practical implications of these findings for how providers teach numeracy, particularly as part of vocational qualifications.

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