From these discussions we can conclude that academic achievement is taken as an indicator of a number of other skills or attributes desired by employers. By literacy, in this context, we mean the ability to write English using adequate standards of grammar, punctuation and spelling. Literacy can be distinguished in this respect from written business communication skills as such. It is disturbing to reflect that, according to anecdotal evidence here, up to half of graduates who are achieving adequate academic results, can be rejected by employers after testing for literacy and numeracy. Poor use of grammar is one complaint of employers.
Inadequate spelling is another.
Use of word-processors has led to reliance on them, but this can lead in practice to the substitution of quite the wrong word in context. Employers tend to blame schools rather than the universities for inadequate literacy, perceiving grammar as something that is no longer taught. It actually makes you wonder what they get passed for at Uni. So many applications are mis-written, wrongly spelled, grammatically incorrect. Numeracy Numeracy appears less of a problem than literacy.