Response from Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) and the Right to Read Alliance to the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee inquiry into Adult Literacy and Numeracy

1. About us

As the largest organisation of blind and partially sighted people in the UK, RNIB is pleased to have the opportunity to respond to this consultation.

We are a membership organisation with over 10,000 members who are blind, partially sighted or the friends and family of people with sight loss and more than 80 per cent of our Board of Trustees are blind or partially sighted. We encourage them to be involved in our work and regularly consult with them on government policy and their ideas for change.

As a campaigning organisation of blind and partially sighted people, we fight for the rights of people with sight loss in each of the UK’s countries. Our priorities are to:

 Stop people losing their sight unnecessarily  Support independent living for blind and partially sighted people  Create a society that is inclusive of blind and partially sighted people's interests and needs.

We also provide expert knowledge to business and the public sector through consultancy on improving the accessibility of the built environment, technology, products and services.

It is estimated that one in eight of us in the UK are unable to read standard print because we have sight problems, dyslexia or another disability which makes it difficult to hold a book or turn a page. RNIB is a member of the Right to Read Alliance - around 20 charities campaigning for people with print impairments to have access to the same book, at the same time, and same price as everyone else. Accessible eBooks and eReading devices can transform the reading experience for print disabled people, and it is crucial that accessibility is built in along the supply chain. The Alliance has a track record of collaboration and partnership with the publishers, developers, device manufacturers, retailers, librarians and others to work towards this. Much has been achieved, and there is still a long way to go.

Executive summary

 RNIB and the Right to Read Alliance are responding because adult literacy is inevitably affected by the level of accessibility of information and education to reading disabled people, both in education during childhood and thereafter.  There are huge social and financial costs of illiteracy, which are borne disproportionately by reading disabled people.  To ensure adult literacy and numeracy among reading disabled people, there is great need for effective and inclusive education in schools, which must include timely and full provision of accessible format educational material.  RNIB and the Right to Read Alliance believe the Government must do more to ensure a fully effective and inclusive education for reading disabled people. Cuts to central and local government funding undermining many services reading disabled people need are creating greater exclusion and consequent illiteracy.

2 1. Overview

1.1 RNIB and The Right to Read Alliance are responding to this inquiry because adult literacy is inevitably affected by the level of accessibility of information and education to reading disabled people, both in education during childhood and thereafter.

1.2 Around one in eight of the UK’s population have some sort of reading disability.

1.3 Reading disabled people want to read and can read books and other information, but to do so they need “accessible formats” such as audio, large print, braille or Daisy (see www.Daisy.org). However, although a high percentage of the top 1000 titles is available in accessible formats, thanks primarily to accessible eBooks and accessible eBook reading devices, currently the commercial market in the UK only produces some 7 per cent of all books in accessible formats: www.rnib.org.uk/publiaheradvice This is a “book famine”.

1.4 Charities such as RNIB and Calibre supply accessible format books and information to reading disabled people where we can. We also work with the publishing industry to improve the level of mainstream accessible publishing. However, much more still needs to be done in the mainstream educational, publishing and public sector to achieve full accessibility. Without full accessibility, reading disabled people will always have an uphill battle to attain the same standards of literacy and numeracy as the rest of the population.

1.5 Along with the need for improved supply of accessible format books, there is a greater need for educational resources and support for teachers of reading disabled people in the classroom. This is especially so given that still much of the resource that reading disabled pupils use in school is generated by teachers themselves.

1.6 It is well documented (Stewart, 2005) that there are huge social and financial costs as a result of illiteracy. There are implications both for the individual that struggles to read and for our economy as the result of underemployment, unemployment and crime. These are directly related to literacy problems as the result of poor academic achievement, vocational training and reduced employment opportunities. Studies show that many learners who start with 3 difficulties in the classroom move through low self-esteem, poor behaviour and school exclusion, and end up offending and in prison. According to a Skills for Life Survey which looked at adults' English and Maths attainment, 5.1 million people lacked functional literacy skills. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (2012) consequently recommended that new models of delivering Initial Teacher Education should be explored.

1.7 We have answered the questions below specifically with regard to the needs of print disabled people, and the effect of the “book famine” on the literacy of the UK’s reading disabled adults.

2. Our answers to the Committee’s questions

2.1 What is the Government currently doing to help adults improve their reading, writing and maths skills?

2.1.1 Sadly, Government cuts have been doing much to undermine the literacy and numeracy of reading-disabled people. Cuts to local authorities’ budgets often mean the removal of services for people losing their sight. RNIB estimates that since 2005, the number of blind and partially sighted people receiving professional support, such as help from a rehabilitation officer, has fallen by more than 70 per cent in England. If current trends continue, in just 10 years' time it could well be the case that not a single blind or partially sighted person will receive any support from their council to remain independent. Conversely, we need government funding to support the provision of national expertise/resources for reading disabled people.

2.1.2 The ongoing pressures on local government to make year-on- year budget cuts is also leading to the termination of Council funding for the provision of RNIB talking books services, which are much- valued by blind and partially sighted people. The latest shocking example of this is Lancashire County Council, which has just announced that from April 2014 it will no longer fund the RNIB talking books service for the 800 recipients of that service in Lancashire. It is content to allow blind and partially sighted people to use its library service of accessible books, comprising some 3000 titles, rather than the RNIB’s service comprising 22,000 talking books.

2.1.3 On the positive side there is a wealth of quality resources to support adult learning. Many of these have been directly or indirectly 4 financed by Government – for example Maths4Us or the wealth of Jisc resources like the BombSight App and Locating London’s Past. These can engage non traditional learners and lead into formal education. Projects like Discover Jisc (Jisc TechDis 2013) help surface these opportunities but staff development activity has virtually halted in many learning providers so many of these resources remain unused through lack of staff time to explore and embed them in teaching.

2.2 How can the Government make sure that adults have the right skills that can help them find a job, which in turn will help the country, and more widely?

2.2.1 In terms of literacy and numeracy, there is of course a need to begin in the school setting, rather than waiting for adulthood.

It is important to ensure that reading disabled children and young people have the right level of support so that they can learn to read, and a range of titles that will stimulate their reading for pleasure, which underpins the development of literacy.

We note that, attending a Westminster event on 21st January 2014, Michael Gove said

“Nothing is more important than ensuring every child can read. Reading gives every child the opportunity to become the author of their own life story, the shaper of their own future.”

Sue Porto, chief executive of the charity Beanstalk, a national charity that recruits, vets, trains and supports volunteers to work in primary schools with children who have fallen behind with their reading1, said: “Reading is key to a child’s future and underpins a child’s chances of achieving at school and later in life.”

Given the importance of early learning for adult literacy and numeracy, we applaud the funding from the Department for Education which helped RNIB and Dyslexia Action set up the free online service “Load2learn”, to provide accessible digital textbooks to learners who have a print disability.

1 http://www.beanstalkcharity.org.uk/about-us 5 Provision in England of accessible curriculum resources should be funded by central Government, as it is in Scotland and Wales. Load2Learn provides a cost effective national provision of resources, as well as expert advice and training. With adequate funding, the infrastructure already in place could be used to extend support to adult learners and the professionals supporting them.

More generally, there is a need for more Government help for schools to fully provide access support to reading disabled pupils. For example, without specific support for Braille literacy and numeracy, we believe blind children will be severely disadvantaged in adulthood, which in all likelihood would lead to dependence on welfare benefits. In this context it should be noted that Braille is particularly important as a resource for blind pupils learning maths. The Government used to provide RNIB with a Braille Grant to fund braille literacy resources and expertise for adult learners, which was vital to RNIB’s provision of support for braille reading. This grant should be reinstated.

There is a key government role in providing a coherent approach to technology support for print disabled learners throughout the learning journey. This should include minimum standards of assistive technology availability in every sector. The current piecemeal approach depends creates a lottery of outcomes. For example Load2Learn provides accessible texts to Keystage 3 and 4 students but no in-built text to speech to read them. Meanwhile BIS (via Jisc TechDis) funds free text to speech for all post 16 learners in England but there is no post16 Load2Learn service to provide the accessible digital texts. Across all sectors many learning providers fail to use the technology available to support learners because it scarcely features on Ofsted’s radar.

2.2.2 We note that the latest figures from the Department for Education (DfE, 2011) show that an estimated 5,740 pupils are permanently excluded from primary, secondary and all special schools. Pupils with statements of Special Educational Needs (SEN) are around eight times more likely to be permanently excluded than those pupils with no SEN. According to the DfE, 75% of all school exclusions, some 4,260 children are permanently excluded.

2.2.3 Such exclusion costs financially as well as socially. National Foundation of Educational Research (NFER, Rack, 2005) noted that the cost of provision for a child who is excluded is approximately 6 £10,000 per annum. The cost of supporting children with SEN who are excluded is therefore over £50 million per year. This funding would have been better used to provide appropriate early support in school.

2.2.4 Literacy, disability and prison. As detailed in the Corporate and Business Plan 2011-12 to 2014-15 (D133) of the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales (2011), the National Audit Office has estimated that the total cost to the UK economy of offending by young people could be up to £11 billion per year, and the proportion of young people who reoffend stands at around 37%. Over a quarter of children in the youth justice system have a learning disability, while more than three-quarters have serious difficulties with literacy. (Department of Health, cited by Newman et al., 2012). Work in prisons and young offender institutions should ensure that adult literacy and numeracy tuition includes the accessibility needs of reading disabled people.

2.2.5 Improvements are needed in education to help pupils with literacy difficulties. Two separate surveys undertaken for the Dyslexia Still Matters report (2013) 2produced some startling results concerning the education system and how it dealt with pupils with literacy difficulties concluding that better teacher training is needed in SEN, teachers need a better awareness from the outset of their training of those with Specific Learning Difficulties including dyslexia so children's needs including those who struggle with literacy difficulties, can be identified and supported as early as possible.

2.2.6 For those with visual impairment, research published in 2013 3has found that children aged 7 with sight impairment were more likely to be experiencing difficulties with reading and writing than children with no sight impairment. For children with sight impairment and an additional impairment the differences were even greater.

Some difficulty Great difficulty Sight impairment only: 37% 8% Sight & another impairment: 46% 30% No sight impairment: 21% 4%

2 http://dyslexiaaction.org.uk/dyslexia-still-matters

3 From the Millennium Cohort Survey (John Harris, Sue Keil, Chris Lord and Sally McManus (2013) Sight impaired at age seven: secondary analysis of the Millennium Cohort Survey. RLSB, RNIB and NatCen) 7 2.2.7 Educational attainment has a far stronger effect on registered blind and partially sighted people’s chances of gaining employment than it does for the general population. Among the registered blind and partially sighted population, only people with a degree or higher had a better than even chance of obtaining employment.4

2.3 What are the best ways to help adults learn how to read write and do maths—through formal education providers or in a different way?

2.3.1Formal education needs to be fully able to meet the needs of reading disabled learners, by both offering SEN qualified teachers and timely accessible format teaching materials.

2.3.2 In the realm of reading disabled people, there are also some noteworthy initiatives outside the formal education setting which combine accessibility with the promotion of adult literacy.

2.3.3 The UK charity promoting literacy, the Reading Agency (RA), has a project called "6 Book Challenge", which is a programme for people aged 16 upwards who need to build their reading skills and confidence. It provides guidance for library staff, adult literacy tutors and others. This project should ensure accessible reading disabled adults, not least because the RA receives a large grant from Arts Council, England, which should stipulate the need for accessibility as a condition of its grant.

2.3.4 In 2006, the Quick Reads initiative was launched. Popular authors write a book aimed at people who, for whatever reason, find reading difficult. Most publishers co-operate with RNIB by sending the digital file of their book so that RNIB can add the titles to its accessible book library and braille learners’ collection. These titles can be used for the 6 Book Challenge but RNIB adds them to its braille learners' collection too. To ensure accessibility can be provided, publishers need to be encouraged to send RNIB the digital file well in advance of publication date.

4 (Douglas D, Pavey S, Clements B and Corcoran C (2009) Network 1000. Visually impaired people’s access to employment. Visual Impairment Centre for Teaching and Research, School of Education, University of Birmingham for Vision2020 UK). 8 2.3.5 As mentioned earlier in this submission, Braille is particularly important to blind pupils learning maths. Support for Braille should be increased with this fact in mind.

For more information, please contact:

Dan Pescod Campaigns Manager, Europe,International and Accessibility Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) 105 Judd Street London WC1H 9NE. UK

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7391 2009 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7391 2395 email: [email protected]

9