One in seven of New Zealand’s 15-year-olds cannot read at a level considered requisite for basic participation in society, according to the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study. But does this simply reflect natural variation in ability levels and the left-end of the bell curve?

Leaving kids at the bottom of the educational barrel will be catastrophic for society, argues Jon Moynihan OBE, Executive Chairman of the PA Consulting Group. In his presentation The Continued Economic Decline of the West to the London School of Economics (available on YouTube), he explains that globalisation has and is continuing to open up large pools of unskilled labour markets.

There are 1.1 billion people in urban areas in developing countries who earn US$12 a day, and there are another 1.3 billion people earning US$1 to $2 per day, waiting in the wings to urbanise.

In advanced economies like ours, similar skill levels earn an average of about US$135 per day, for now.

But with the laws of supply and demand, unskilled jobs will naturally drain to the East, and it’s already happening.

So what does that mean for the one in seven Kiwi kids who cannot read? Quite simply, the migration of jobs to countries with cheaper pools of labour means there will be none of these types of jobs left. These kids will be very unlikely to participate in employment, further education, or training. Those who are lucky enough to get a job will be very poorly paid.

It is a tired excuse that schools and teachers should not be expected to correct for the disadvantages that children bring from home. Frankly, this is not good enough. Other countries are better at using education to correct for socio-economic disadvantage. 2009 figures suggest that teachers need more support to teach basic reading skills at the very least.

It is with much anticipation that we await the 3 December launch of PISA 2012. Will New Zealand still have one of the largest gaps in the world between the top- and bottom- performing students? What percentage of our 15-year-olds are able to read?