Adults and Young People as Essential Skills Learners

By Rebecca Phillips

1.
The “Basic skills agency” (2002) defines basic skills as : “The ability to read, write, and speak in English (or welsh), and to use mathematics at a level necessary to function at work and in society in general.”
Basic skills (Essential skills) are the skills needed for work, learning and life. They are the foundation for learning all other skills and can enable people to evolve with their jobs and adapt to workplace change. These essential skills are literacy, numeracy and ICT. Comms is to ensure people can read write, Application of Number is to enable people to have the skills to manage cash and budgeting. ICT is a skill used in almost every workplace, therefore learners need to have the ability to be able to use it within a working environment. These are the minimum skills expected of an adult in a working environment. 2.3
Possible outcomes of having Essential skills needs are: A) Low self esteem/ confidence – people who have needs can struggle in life and the result of those issues can become an issue. Some even resulting in depression B) This can become intergenerational, this is because they cannot support their offspring whilst in education. C) E mployment issues- people with poor Essential skills are more likely to be unemployed due to this. 2.1 5 reasons why people may have essential skills needs: A) Absence in education, learners not attending school on a regular basis B) Bad experience in school- large class sizes can have an impact on learning and some learners are not given the attention the need C) Learning difficulties- learners may have had unidentified learning difficulties whilst in education. D) Learners in this day and age could be immigrants and English is not necessarily a first language for the learner,