And I didn’t say that in 1978 everyone had perfect literacy. What I did say was a lot of emphasis was placed on basic literacy back then and that doesn’t appear to be the case today.

To be fair though, this hasn’t been confined to overseas candidates. I’ve interviewed British people whose vocabulary has seemed to consist of phrases like, “yeah well, I suppose, like, whatever.” That’s often been coupled with a cocky attitude that suggests they’re doing us a favour by wanting the job.

And yes, I have to agree about the recruitment agencies. There are some very good ones – in fact we now use one to sort the wheat from the chaff and they do a pretty good job of it by and large – but there are quite a few cowboy outfits who I wouldn’t touch with a bargepole.

It turns out that there are such entities as “recruitment agencies” and “translation services” who will help you put together an application in a language other than your own and make it sound very professional indeed. Whereas most recent UK graduates are under the impression that recruiters are evil money-grubbing scum not worthy of licking the bumcrack of an actual human being* and they rely on their own skills and/or that of the University Careers Department, which is probably too busy to proofread every document it would like to.

*because they are.

“For all we know, half the Britisher candidates come from council sink estates and had a cookie-cutter education that never focussed on the correctness of their English.”

Fair points all round, and the quote above may well be spot on. I’m not disputing its accuracy. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that my second subset (British gradjits what wanna job in computers and stuff) have completed a degree course without having the ability to communicate clearly. We’re not just talking about minor disparities between Indian and British applicants’ standards of English either. I’m well aware that not everyone in the UK has had the benefit of the intense coaching that the Indian elite have. We can (and do) make allowances for that.

The old argument about dyslexia doesn’t really hold water when you look at the extent to which dreadful spelling and
grammar presents itself. When I was at school in the 1970s, there were a few people who were almost certainly
dyslexic and had a really tough time. I’d like to think that they would receive more sympathetic teaching thirty
years on. But there were only a few – not nearly enough to account for the stuff I have to read when recruiting.

OK, empirical evidence again, but the majority of people in my age range can spell and punctuate reasonably well. You get differing levels of ability, but you don’t see too many real howlers. A lot of emphasis was placed on that at school in the 1970s. It’s a huge difference to what we see today. I think that was what PI was on about – it was done then, so why the hell can’t it be done now? I can’t disagree with that.

Fair enough, it’s unlikely that everyone would get intense coaching, but it must be possible to raise the standards up from their current low levels.

Yes, language evolves and always has done. Nouns become verbs (text, email for example), variant spellings evolve and foreign words come in (for example, the American “program” is used a lot to describe a series of instructions to
be executed by a computer, with the British “programme” being used to describe other collections of related activities).

But when one is comparing a British graduate who can’t spell with a foreign one who can, it’s difficult to give the
job to the Briton when they will be required to create documents to be given to a customer. When you’re bidding for work worth tens of millions, you need to look professional at all times; presenting a bid full of spelling errors and slang is the quickest way to blow your chances.

I work alongside a lot of Indian nationals, all of whom speak and write impeccable English. One of them told me that the teaching of English in most of India hasn’t changed much since the days of the Raj. There’s a lesson there, I think.
[politicallyincorrect], Leeds, UK of A,

Hah Ha! Yes! I am must to be agreeing with the good Mr Politicallyincorrect. He is most certainly of good family stock, my goodness yes. There are no flies on him. We High-Caste Indians speak very much like the fine fellows our grandfathers knew, your grandfather’s in fact! With the tugging of the forelock and stiff upper lip, cor blimey, what? God speaks The Queen’s English and likes Nanny’s porridge best. (Your God I mean. Vishnu speaks Bengali or my old man’s a Dutchman, Yes?) The decline of the English youth is a break to my heart. It is because of the Cricket! My word, if you played more cricket you would still have the marvellous Empire that never set. But that evil Dr. Jinnah and his vile Muslim Brotherhood devils stole from you. Believe me my friend, never trust a single muslim, they are all sons of dogs. Toodle-pip!