Umm how do you get a middle one of 4?

2+2=5   (for large values of 2)

or the median height of four people is the middle height

Standards of basic maths.

Yes it has been getting worse among school leavers and job seekers over the last few years.  

Cheers..................K

I,ve always been a great admirer of our education system and i still am.Our schools and teachers do a great job IMO.I dont put a lot of faith in surveys carried out by so called "experts" who have nothing better to do no matter what the subject is.

v9

Mastery of English leaves much to be desired as well.

CY, sadly the evidence supports that view!  I guess that it's made even worse on here because of the lack of a spell checker!

Mastery of English leaves much to be desired as well.

Wot e sayed 

Mastery of English leaves much to be desired as well.

...Is it because we are getting to be the minority

You neglected to post your results though K!

Probably, like me. thought they were too easy (watch for traps). 

No, I guess that its because many didn't and don't see it as important.

I left my Secondary Technical school with 5 O levels of Maths, Physics, engineering theory & practise, Technical drawing, and History.  However I soon found that the lack of "English' in my qualifications, especially a tendency towards poor spelling, was clearly holding me back. So I decided to do something about it!

It didn't take that long to add English to my qualifications, and I even took it a stage further.

I certainly do not criticise other people for a lack of spelling skills, because I've been there too.  It's just a matter of where life takes you. In my case it was holding me back, but others may not have experienced similar issues.

However, I am proud of our language, it's what makes us who we are as a Nation, and I would hate to see us lose that!

TF