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"Some of the sentences I considered to be simple still had too many words with too many syllables"

Staff at North Lincs Museum attending training in Skills for Life awareness

Skills for Life

Family history taster session provided by Hull History Service

Family history taster session provided by Hull History Service

There are 7 million adults in the UK who have difficulties with their literacy, language and numeracy skills, their Skills for Life.

Literacy, language and numeracy skills are defined as:

“the ability to read, write, speak in English and use mathematics to a level to function at work and in society in general.”

Skills for Life is the government strategy to improve the literacy and numeracy skills of adults over the age of 16 in the UK. Click here to see the full Skills for Life strategy: National Strategy for Improving Adult Literacy and Numeracy Skills [206.0kb].

Adults over 16 who have literacy or numeracy skills below a level 2 (GCSE A-C level) can access free classes to improve their skills.

Skills for Life, the all embracing literacy, numeracy and language strategy, is now in its fifth year of progress.  Covering all adults aged over 16 on pre-entry and up to and including Level Two discrete and embedded provision, over one million adults nationally have achieved an approved qualification since 2001 across a mix of classroom, community, voluntary and work based learning with assessment through Key Skills (Application of Number and Communication), GCSE English and maths and adult literacy, language and numeracy certification.

With a Public Sector Agreement (PSA) target to reach by 2010, a milestone of improving 1.5 million people’s functional, everyday literacy, numeracy and language skills by July 2007 has been set nationally. In Yorkshire and the Humber, this means up-skilling a total of 162,200 learners.