Cents & nonsense:Businesses have identified a significant deficit among employees and are struggling to remedy it

Bertie is trying to tell me something. Every time I walk along a street or drive my car, his gaze follows me from those election posters. At home, Bertie the Bus even pops up in Thomas the Tank Engine books.

What do those sad, puppy dog eyes and hunched shoulders mean? Oh Bertie, have you had enough governing? Are you too tired to go on or are you simply reducing your make-up costs in the first move toward a balanced budget?

Messages, intended or otherwise, are communicated in many ways. The election poster beauty parade may imply Fine Gael and the PDs have sunny, blue-sky dispositions but Fianna Fáil's dull green might mean they have the weight of the world on their shoulders. Either way, a vote for the most photogenic candidate certainly won't get you off a trolley in A&E.

Elections are like Junior Cert exams: they avoid any real debate, send simplistic messages and cost society a great deal more than originally estimated.

The State's chief examiner in English recently pointed out that writing standards of Junior Cert students are slipping. This next generation of voters chooses to communicate using short sentences, simple tenses and a limited vocabulary, according to the report.

Generation Text should have no problem speaking in politician-sized soundbites specially crafted for the Six One News. The examiner also found that students were giving minimalist answers to questions. They must be learning from the politicians who appear on Morning Ireland.

Students are simply working the points-based system. They have learned how to score on exams rather than how to express original, logical, well- structured thoughts. Next year, why don't they just let students list the facts in bullet points?

The Government educates our children - the future workforce - using our taxes. Does the points system really deliver value for our money?

Teachers know that these exams cannot possibly test the full range of students' knowledge.

The Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) commented on the report: "We do need to ensure that appropriate standards are maintained in spelling, punctuation and grammar but the modest and fair recommendations of the chief examiners should not lead us to forget that the sheer wonder of language is in its adaptability, its individuality and its variousness."

Our young people are extremely intelligent and savvy. New technology allows them to communicate and process information in a different way from their parents. Many regularly write insightful blogs, publish journals and read their contemporaries' work online.

Like every generation of adolescents, they also speak an exclusive language. Remember phrases of approval such as: "That's swell, Daddy-O" or "Like, that is so totally gnarly, dude". Today's tribe talks text.

Language is a tool. Its shape changes with our needs. A hammer was not always a hammer. Once, it was probably a rock or another caveman's head.

Writing and speaking are designed to do one thing: communicate a message to a particular audience.

Most school students go to university or join the workforce but the exam system leaves them badly equipped for this important phase in their lives.

If you buy a vacuum cleaner and it does not remove the dust from the floor, then it is not fit for its intended purpose. Consumer legislation says you have a right to take it back.

You can't return an education, yet third-level institutions and businesses report that many people lack basic communication skills.

This failure to express information or opinions clearly has far-reaching implications for our society, culture and economy, if the international experience is anything to go by.

Writing Matters, a study sponsored by the Royal Literary Fund, found that a worrying number of university students don't know how to structure a sentence or express themselves in writing. In the United States, the National Commission on Writing recently reported that American organisations spend more than $3 billion (€2.2 billion) a year teaching employees to write clearly.

Writing and speaking are no longer purely academic issues. Irish businesses have identified a significant skills gap among employees and they are struggling to remedy it.

The costs are high: poor communication can damage reputations, lose money, reduce productivity and alienate customers.

If our tiny island wants to remain competitive on the world stage, we must be smarter, faster and communicate more clearly than our competitors.

Now, the next steps: take down those sad posters and start a real debate.

• Margaret E Ward is a journalist specialising in personal finance and consumer issues. She is also a director of Clear Ink, the Clear English Specialists. Please write to her at: cents@clearink.ie