A RECENT study by the Confederation of British Industry and Education Development International, covering 600 businesses with a total of almost two million employees, has shown that 40 per cent of employers were dissatisfied with the basic reading and writing skills of school leavers.

Thirty-five percent found numeracy standards unacceptable – so much so that many employers are forced to spend money on remedial training for new employees.

Overall almost 70 per cent of those who took part on the survey were of the opinion that urgent measures needed to be taken to improve the basic education standards of 14 to 19-year olds.

These appalling statistics undermine the government’s claim that A-level pass rates have risen steadily over the last 28 years – reaching a totally unbelievable 97.6 per cent in 2010.

Yet the proof of the pudding is in the eating – and when it comes to a choice between believing statistics provided by the government or those provided by the Confederation of British Industry – I’ll trust the latter every time.

Most school-leavers in the 1950s and 1960s were far better educated than many of today’s university graduates.

The sad decline in education standards over the last few decades is the result of too much government interference and new-fangled ideas promoted by so-called ‘progressive’ education experts.

Things won’t even start to improve until we return to the tried and trusted method of giving all young children a decent grounding in reading, writing and arithmetic.

ROBERT READMAN, Bournemouth