I noticed this story off the afternoon news in Germany....roughly six million adults (we aren't even at the stage of discussing juveniles) can only marginally read or write. This came off a PhD-type study by a university.
So they point out in the details that half of these are actually full-up Germans (they were born here). The rest are guests, immigrants, or in transition.
In the last year or two....there's been continual comments via journalists and political figures....that there is this problem brewing, but they wanted to point the finger more at the immigrants....than those who grew up here.
Part of this story revolves around poor literacy, where you have some German kid that barely got himself through the 8th grade....got hired out to stock shelves or got some 'help' to pass a drivers test (meaning cheating in some way), or has worked most of his life as a construction-helper. The PhD-guys all disagree to the levels that we are discussing. You could have several hundred-thousand who might only read at the 3rd-grade level. You can blame it on personal issues, and that the education system simply wasn't built to pick up kids and ensure they 'made it'.
So when you look at these numbers, you are really talking about sixty-million adults, and one out of every six can't handle the reading or writing. Working at McDonalds? You might be able to survive in that environment, with limited skills. Same is true for bus drivers (at least if they can cheat their way through the exam, which is typically written at the 8th-grade level).
Getting the Bundestag all hyped up to resolve this or fix it? How?
You'd have to pour more money into the education system, and try to convince local schools to bring in special tutors to help advance kids on reading and writing skills. No one is really interested in that type of system.
Maybe it's a nothing-story, and not worth discussing. But you kinda wonder if the number is advancing or growing.
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