Yesterday we saw the OECD’s third edition of “The Survey of Adult Skills“. It is no surprise that Italy is well below the OECD’s average. The survey refers to the ability to read and understand written texts (cognitive domain of literacy), the ability to understand and use mathematical and numerical information (cognitive domain of numeracy), and the ability to achieve one’s goal in a dynamic situation in which the solution is not immediately available (cognitive domain of adaptive problem solving).
In ten years of budget cuts to education – to talk of the last ten years, no matter who was ruling the country – we couldn’t imagine doing better, and Italy lies at the bottom of the ranking. No news: there must be a reason why we are ruled – election after election – by increasingly less competent rulers. The problem is double because it is a vicious circle: we are on average functional illiterates and so we do elect functional illiterates to ruling positions. And functional illiterates rulers can do what they can do: make worse the situation.
What strikes me is that Italy is not (still) at the very bottom of the ranking: we are fourth from last. Behind us there is Israel and this makes me think about the relationship between functional illiteracy and war. And how you conduct a war and rule a Country. I’ll do everything I can to prevent Italy from catching up with Israel in this ranking.
Take-sumi