Workplace Written Literacy And Its Effect On The Curriculum

Fennick et al. (1993) identify employees poor writing skills on different writingrequirements between school and work. The results of a research conducted by Sidy(1999) indicated that the participants could not relate what they did in freshman writingclasses to the types of writing they have to do in the workplace. The objective of thispaper is to discuss workplace written literacy demands and the levels of written literacyamong applicants for a job at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). Data wascollected using interviews and a written test. The findings suggest that there exists amismatch between written literacy demands and the levels of the applicants. Hence, thereis a need to look at the present curriculum in written literacy both at secondary andtertiary levels with a view to incorporate workplace literacy components.