On Thu, 06 Sep 2007, Natalia <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >CanWest News reported today that the TD Bank recently arrived at a >dollar value to assign to literacy/numeracy skills based on a study of >a number of Canadian and international studies. The report found that >about 40% of youth lack literacy skills and and roughly half of adults >lack both literacy and numeracy.
>"An increase in literacy of one percent would mean a $32 billion >increase in national income -- three times the returns on investment in >machinery," Craig Alexander, TD Bank deputy chief economist and author >of the report said. More dependence on service-based, rather than >industrial sectors, he explained. >He stressed that improving literacy improves civic engagement: "People >are more likely to vote if they can read the ballot." >A 2003 report placed Canada 3rd in reading skills out of 41 nations, >7th in math and 11th in science. There were disparities between >provinces, girls and boys, immigrants and Canadian born, and urban and >rural divides. >Natalia How general is this result, I wonder - did they say it only applies to Canada? The extrapolation is $1B per million population per percent. I might add that there is a limit to the available increase, particularly for numeracy, which is quite a lot below 100% - remember 50% of the population is of below median intelligence; I would guess that numeracy can only be achieved by about 85% of the population. -PV _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list Futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
