§ Mr. LidingtonTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what performance indicators and targets she has established by which to assess her Department's contribution to the Government's objective of raising the UK's sustainable rate of productivity growth. [52933]
§ Mr. Ivan LewisEducation and Skills policy is central to achieving the Government's objective of raising the UK's sustainable rate of productivity growth. The Department's objectives and targets have a crucial role to play in achieving this.
The DTI UK Competitiveness Indicators Report suggests that economic performance has been held back by poor basic skills and a shortage of intermediate-level qualifications. Our targets to raise the proportion of 19-year-olds achieving level 2 and level 3 qualifications will help to address this.
By 2010, it is forecast that 80 per cent. of new jobs will be in higher level occupations, which are the ones graduates are most likely to fill. This illustrates the importance of our target to increase participation in higher education to 50 per cent. of 18 to 30-year-olds by 2010.
Isolating the effect of education and skills policy on productivity is not straightforward, but productivity is strongly linked to earnings. We are committed to reducing 642W the number of adults who have poor literacy or numeracy skills by 750,000 by 2004. The returns to better numeracy skills are estimated to be between 6 per cent. and 10 per cent. of earnings, and the returns to better literacy skills up to 6 per cent.
In addition, there are significant social returns to post-compulsory academic and vocational qualifications. For example, the social rates of return to A levels and first degrees are estimated to be in the range of 14–21 per cent. and 8–10 per cent. respectively.