A new Labour government will set up a literacy unit to produce a strategy to tackle the the problem of illiteracy, the shadow minister for education, Evarist Bartolo said today. 

He said it should be a matter of concern that an EU report had placed Malta in the 25th place out of 27 in literacy rankings. Only Romania and Bulgaria placed worse.  The report showed illiteracy of 36%.

Mr Bartolo said there were three forms of illiteracy - basic illiteracy, functional illiteracy when a person was unable to use literacy skills, and a higher form where the person was unable to use literacy skills for thinking and productive purposes.

 The problem in Malta was functional illiteracy.

 Mr Bartolo said there should also be a national debate on this issue. 

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