MOST adults will be qualified to at least level 3 for the first time if the Learning and Skills Council meets achievement targets announced this week.
The targets will form a central part of the council’s corporate plan, the document which sets out what the national council expects to be achieved by its 47 local organisations around the country by 2004.
It says 52 per cent of adults must be at level 3, compared with 47 per cent in 2000.
It also wants to see 80 per cent of 16 to 18-year-olds in some form of structured learning, compared with 75 per cent in 2000. It wants the number of people who have achieved level 2 by age 19 to increase from 75 to 85 per cent; and the number of 19-year-olds at level 3 to be up from 51 per cent to 55 per cent.
These targets amount to the performance milestone by which the LSC will be judged four years after it was founded in April, taking over funding responsibility for colleges and the educational functions of the old Training and Enterprise Councils.
They sit alongside the LSC’s commitment to reduce the current total of seven million adults with basic numeracy and literacy problems by 750,000 by 2004.
Steve Hook
