Study title

Switzerland has participated in the IALS project (International Adult Literacy Survey) in 1994 (German and French-speaking Switzerland) and 1998 (Italian-speaking Switzerland). This study of adults' ability to cope with everyday cognitive tasks has contributed greatly to the fact that the phenomenon of illiteracy began to gain wider attention, i.e. that many people have only partially acquired or then lost the basic skills that compulsory schooling is supposed to provide. The ALL project is a follow-up to IALS, again under the authority of the OECD. The declared aim was to determine the human capital available in the participating countries by measuring certain basic skills in a sample of adults. A pilot study carried out in 2001 under the name ILSS (International Life Skills Survey) has made it possible to test the procedures and eliminate some less suitable parts of the tests. In Switzerland, the ALL survey covered around 5,500 persons, of whom around 2,000 were in German-speaking Switzerland and another 2,000 in western Switzerland, as well as 1,500 in the Italian-speaking part of the country. The data were collected in individual interviews with the participating persons at home. The interviews included tests on literacy and numeracy and, in German and French-speaking Switzerland, problem-solving skills. In addition, data on socio-demographic characteristics of the participants, their positioning in the social environment or on topics such as attitudes and behaviour regarding further training or the use of modern information and communication technologies were also collected. The cantons of Zurich and Geneva provided larger samples than the other cantons (around 800 each), as they had decided to tackle certain issues in greater depth. This is also the reason why German-speaking Switzerland and Suisse romande have a larger number of participants than Italian-speaking Switzerland. The data collection in the field was carried out in 2003. The international...