International Literacy Day, which falls this year on Sunday 8 September, is always a good prompt to reflect on current state of play on adult literacy, but this year it’s a particularly good time to review the adult literacy landscape in England. In Westminster, there is a new government developing its plans for adult skills, with a focus on economic growth and building opportunities. In city regions and an increasing number of devolved areas, there are new and re-elected mayors with fresh mandates as adult education and skills commissioners, albeit within funding settlements allocated by central government.

Looking further ahead, in December we anticipate the results of the OECD Survey of Adult Skills. This will be the first new national dataset on adult essential skills since the 2013 survey revealed that, in the UK, 9 million adults have low literacy or numeracy skills.

At L&W, we’ve set out a compelling case for action on adult essential skills, with a broad evidence base which shows how tackling low adult literacy improves life chances and benefits individuals, society and the economy. Yet reductions in adult education spending over the past decade have resulted in hundreds of thousands of lost learning opportunities for people who could benefit from improving their confidence and skills in literacy.

In England, adult (19+) participation in literacy learning continues to fall, as does adult numeracy participation. In 2022/23 there were 222,990 adult literacy learners, compared to 360,270 learners in 2018/19, a drop of 38%. It is deeply concerning that adult literacy participation has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels, whereas some other essential skills provision, such as English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), has. Adult literacy providers report that some devolved areas have increased funding rates to try to boost provision, but too often, rising delivery costs make it increasingly challenging to put on the kinds of small group, community-based classes that are often the most effective in engaging and supporting adults to return to learning.

This matters, because adult literacy should be absolutely central to the new government’s ambitions for growth and opportunity, and to a whole range of mayoral priorities for better work, skills and health in our city-regions. The story of Donna Ridings, a finalist at our 2024 Festival of Learning awards, shows how this works.  Donna, after being bullied at school and leaving with no qualifications, returned to learning at the age of 50. Starting with Functional Skills qualifications, she improved her literacy skills and boosted her confidence and self-esteem. She now plans to take a business administration course that will help her develop her career and move on from the low-paid jobs she previously had to juggle around family commitments.

Reversing the decline in adult literacy participation will take concerted action at national and local levels. Ideally, this would include reversing the cuts to adult skills and education budgets that have underpinned falling participation in adult literacy learning over the past decade. But even if additional investment is not immediately available, there is much that can be done within new policy agendas to prioritise adult literacy.

Nationally, Skills England, the new body set up to ensure opportunities for learners from all backgrounds and deliver outstanding skills for businesses, must not neglect the role of literacy skills in enabling people’s progression to higher level, in-demand skills the economy needs. It should work to ensure that everyone has the essential skills they need for life and for work, and consider setting targets, timescales and measures for this to be achieved.

In skills devolution areas, local adult skills strategies must deliver accessible learning opportunities that engage residents, supporting those with literacy and other essential skills needs with clear progression pathways through to higher level skills. These strategies should foster better links between essential skills provision and employment support for unemployed residents. Local skills strategies should also recognise the role of improving literacy and other essential skills in improving people’s health and wellbeing – contributing to reducing economic inactivity – by creating opportunities for learning through initiatives such as social prescribing to adult education.

There’s also a need to look at how innovation in delivery can support more adults to access adult literacy learning. We know that things like local, accessible provision are important – and that should be maintained. But we should also be open to learning, where appropriate, from initiatives like the UK-wide Multiply adult numeracy programme, which has commissioned a set of randomised controlled trials to generate new and robust evidence about what works, which will be available in 2025. Here at L&W, we’re looking forward to participating in a new European project to explore the role of emerging technologies in literacy and adult education.

Let’s hope that the next time we take stock, on International Literacy Day 2025, there will be some positive developments in adult literacy to reflect on – it’s too important an issue for there not to be.