EDUCATION bosses today revealed a plan to raise "terrible" literacy and numeracy standards after admitting they were among the worst in the country.

The level of basic numeracy and literacy in Blackburn with Darwen is well below the national average, with thousands of adults even struggling to find a plumber in the Yellow Pages because of their poor alphabet skills.

More than one in 10 school leavers lack basic reading and writing skills and 15,000 people in the borough don't have them either, according to a council report.

Now education chiefs have pledged to improve standards and to look at why the borough has such a bad record.

East Lancashire's economic and social deprivation has been blamed for the low standards, along with its population make-up.

More than 220 out of 1,900 Blackburn with Darwen teenagers left school this year without basic reading and writing skills.

On top of that, around 31 per cent of adults in the borough aged 16 to 60 failed to meet national standards in numeracy while 29 per cent struggled with basic literacy, according to the latest figures available. The figures are from 1997 but are being been used for the first time to help set council policy.

The national average was 24 per cent for both - making the borough one of the worst in the country.

Now education chiefs are working to reduce the number of people in the borough without these basic skills to 7,500 by 2010.

But the high rate of school leavers without basic skills means the council believes it will not be able to reverse the trend before 2007.

Action has already been taken to help improve standards. The number of people signed up on basic skills courses for the academic year 2001-2002 was 3,652 - more than double the Lancashire Learning and Skills Council target for the area.

But Harry Davenport, assistant director of education with the council, believes positive improvements on last year's Key Stage 2 levels means improvements will filter through eventually. He presented the report to Blackburn with Darwen's education scrutiny committee and told how initiatives were progressing to tackle the problem.

He said: "We have reduced the performance gap at primary level through the Government's literacy and numeracy strategy but this will take time to filter through. We are way behind the rest of Europe and a long way behind the national average, which is a terrible situation. Four out of five jobs created now will require skill levels above A-level. Only one third of Britons have these."

Twenty eight per cent of pupils in Blackburn with Darwen-maintained schools do not have English as their first language, compared to 6.5 per cent for Lancashire. Mr Davenport said: "The difficulty really lies with adults who lack basic skills. The report included the latest national statistics available from the Office of National Statistics at the time, which did date from 1997. We accepted in using them, that they might not give an accurate measure of the progress that has been made in recent years." Now the council has set out plans to raise standards, increase the number of courses and boost achievement. And it will carry out more research into why Blackburn is struggling with low basic skills levels. Specific wards will be targeted - Audley, Ewood, Little Harwood with Whitebirk, Meadowhead, Queen's Park, Shadsworth, Shear Brow, Wensley Fold. Work will also be carried out to promote family literacy and numeracy projects, such as staging adult learning classes.

Conservative education spokesman, Coun Michael Law-Riding, said: "We need to positively encourage all people in the borough to take advantage of any opportunity that is available."