A study of literacy and life skills among the adult populations of six developed nations saw Bermuda place third overall but revealed that a third of young black males are deemed at risk when it comes to everyday literacy skills.

The Department of Statistics participated in the Adult Literacy and Life Skills survey (ALL), which saw Bermuda?s adult population studied and compared with Canada, Norway, Switzerland, Italy, the US and a state in Mexico. While the overall population scored well, a third of young black males were deemed at risk. The Department stated that the one third of black males that are at risk have probably developed coping skills to manage everyday skills but would find it hard to learn new things.

Premier Alex Scott said at a press conference, that he had charged the Minister of Education, Terry Lister with fixing the problem. ?I have charged the Minister of Education to set a date and time when we can declare that every graduate from our school system can read, just read. If he can give us a date when that can be realised we are well on our way of providing the basics for our most competitive society.?

The study also revealed that the Department of Statistics planned to conduct a further investigation of the skills of these young men. The study examined four types of literacy; prose literacy, document literacy, numeracy and problem solving.

Overall Bermuda ranked third; however when it came to prose literacy Bermuda tied with Norway ranked first and for document literacy tied with Canada for second place. The study examined people between the age of 16 and 65 and found that 32 percent of Bermuda?s adults can only function at a basic reading level.

The Department pointed out that people in the older age brackets were less likely to have finished their education and more likely to have entered the workforce at a young age, which would help account for the number of people with poor literacy skills.

Valerie Robinson James, Chief Statistician, also pointed out that there were large groups of the population deemed at risk in every country. Premier Scott complimented the Department of Statistics on a fine job, one which he said would benefit the country.

?This represents a significant achievement because this is the first time we have been able to measure this information among our adult population and being able to establish a literacy bench mark in a country, in any country, but especially our country is quite an achievement,? he said.

The decision to partake in the study was made three years ago by then Premier Dame Jennifer Smith. The aim was, he said, to determine what social factors influence literacy proficiency and how adults function in life with their level of proficiency.

Mr. Scott said the most significant aspect of the study was that the Government was now able to identify the Island?s strengths and weaknesses in literacy and formulate polices that could address the situation.

?Literacy is a building block of democracy. The success of Government?s Social Agenda depends on adults who can read and use information to make decisions that benefit their own lives and those of their families and also the community.

?At its heart the Social Agenda seeks to assist those who find themselves on the margins to make their way in the mainstream,? he explained. ?This requires the cooperation of many people with many different specialities in many different places.?

While Bermuda placed well overall, one of the more disturbing statistics pointed to a third of black males aged between 16 and 30 were at risk. This means they can only handle basic tasks of everyday life.

This age group also showed the greatest disparity based on race, while a third of young black males are at risk only 15 percent of young white males were considered at risk. In other age groups, for men, the difference between the races was less than four percent.

For women, the largest disparity between the races came for women between the age of 46 and 65. Thirty-two percent of black women in this group were deemed at risk compared to 21 percent of white women. The next largest gap was between black and white women aged 16-30 with 26 percent and 18 percent being deemed at risk respectively.

People in Bermuda aged 26 to 35 faired best in the study, of this group 44 percent have obtained a college education.

The Department of Statistics also noted that based on the participating nations placement in the United Nation?s 2005 Development Report Bermuda would have placed in the top ten countries. The UN report examined literacy, life expectancy, enrolment in schools and CDP per capital to produce a Human Development Index.