The government's drive to raise literacy standards in primary schools needs overhauling, the chief inspector of schools said yesterday.

The NFEC set financial literacy standards for youth personal finance education.

But before we get all worked up again over literacy standards and our national competitiveness, it might be a good idea to start looking closer at these tests.

As other countries raise their literacy standards, ours have dropped.

He wants to look at some schools as part of a national information gathering exercise on literacy standards.

Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, has called on all pupils to read 50 books a year as part of a national drive to improve literacy standards.

Though not required to do so, P.S. 158 has carved up its morning into a block schedule as a way to meet the literacy standards.

Wisconsin's literacy standard, for example, expects high school students to prepare a research paper that detects bias in sources.

"The schools are not turning out kids who can meet the basic literacy standards of the jobs available."

A basic literacy standard in many places is the ability to read the newspaper.