PRELIMINARY results from Bermuda's first literacy survey show residents to be proficient in understanding prose, but less capable of analytical reasoning and comprehending graphs or mathematical concepts.

The initial findings of the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey were released by Statistics Canada and gave a brief overview of how the seven participating countries ? Canada, Bermuda, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, the United States and the Mexican State of Nuevo Leon ? fared against one another.

The two-hour survey was conducted in 2003 and examined the prose literacy, document literacy, numeracy and problem solving skills of residents between the ages of 16 and 65. A joint study by the Government of Canada, the US National Centre for Education Statistics and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, it involved a randomly chosen member from 4,500 households selected for participation by Bermuda's Department of Statistics.

"On the prose scale, residents of only two countries ? Norway and Bermuda ? performed better than Canada," reported Statistics Canada in a release. "Adults in the United States performed slightly less well than Canadians on all scales. Norway performed highest on all four scales. The importance of literacy and other skills are demonstrated when we notice that, in all participating countries, the study found a significant wage return for higher skill levels."

Former Premier Jennifer Smith launched the survey, saying its aim was that "the data collected (would) help us establish a literacy benchmark for the adult population and identify any skill shortages and deficits in technical skill sets. Armed with this information, Government will be in a position to put the necessary programmes in place to address identified problems."

According to Ms Smith, there was a genuine need for an evaluation of the population as various agencies and the corporate community had expressed concern about low literacy levels on the island.

"There is also the perception that the high levels of literacy, once achieved, in Bermuda by adults with only a primary education, have fallen disastrously over the years. This is most evident in the increasing number of persons who are unable to complete job application forms."

Specific findings for each participating area will be released in the fall, however the report specifically addressed the relationship between literacy skills and earnings and the role of computers.

"In Bermuda and Italy, the returns of literacy skills overshadowed the impact of education. After accounting for individual skills, wage returns to education were either zero or negative. This suggests that adults with additional years of schooling who do not display a commensurate level of skill are not rewarded for their additional schooling in the labour market.

"The 2003 survey found that people who use computers consistently scored higher on average on the prose literacy scale that those who didn't. This 'literacy gap' occurred in all seven nations. The distribution of different profiles in literacy and computer use differs from nation to nation. For example, in Italy, Switzerland and the United States, the largest group is comprised of adults with a combined profile of low literacy and low-intensity computer use. Conversely, in Canada, Norway and Bermuda, the largest group consists of users with medium to high literacy skills and low-intensity computer use. The survey also found that individuals with combined high literacy skills and computer use were more likely to have high earnings."

In 2000 Bermuda made a commitment, along with over 180 countries at the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal, to improve adult literacy by 50 percent by 2015.