Interesting comments from Terry Leahy, Chief Executive of Tesco, about the state of the UK education system. Whatever his motives, he is right in pointing out that apart from the 'elite' in schools whose job it is to better the exam results statistics we are churning out a generation of an illiterate underclass.

I recently worked on a temporary, part-time basis for a literacy department in a local college and during my induction they told me that around a staggering 20% of young people have primary school level literacy and numeracy skills. As a teacher I could understand it. The UK has a very poor reputation internationally. In my home state of New South Wales in Australia the Teachers' Federation advises people not to pursue teaching in the UK if anyone is thinking of going.

At least Mr Leahy didn't echo Rupert Murdoch's comments of a few months ago which was just more teacher bashing. I do think with seemingly a lot of business leaders suddenly being interested in education they are trying to get a head start at corporate involvement in education. John Criddlaand of the business lobby group, CBI, said as much when he said in the Guardian on the 13th October, "the CBI is putting so much effort into the partnership between business and education, to tackle these challenges."

However I do think that Mr Leahy is at least partly motivated for Tesco to get a slice of the action if/when more private investment is asked for. If he genuinely wanted to contribute more to education he could start by having the whole of Tesco pay the same rates of tax as the rest of us, for instance.