When it comes to the three Rs, Bermuda residents are among the best in the world at ?reading and writing?, but drop down the scale for ??rithmetic?, according to an international literacy skills survey.

And when it comes to problem solving, Bermuda ranks fifth out of the six countries surveyed in the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey.

The massive report, released this week by the Organisation For Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and Statistics Canada, polled residents between the age of 16 and 65 in Norway, Switzerland, the US, Canada, Italy and Bermuda in 2003.

Bermuda ranked first with Norway in ?prose literacy?, defined as the ability to understand and use information from texts including editorials, news stories, brochures and instruction manuals.

Bermuda ranked ahead of Canada, Switzerland, the US and Italy in the category. The Island slipped to joint second with Canada in document literacy ? defined as the ability to locate and use information contained in various formats, including job applications, payroll forms, transport schedules, maps, tables and charts.

Norway again was first, with Switzerland, the US and Italy bringing up the rear.

Switzerland was determined to have the highest level of numeracy, with Norway second, Bermuda and Canada third, the US fifth and Italy again last.

And in problem solving, Bermuda fell to joint fourth, again with Canada, with Norway first, Switzerland second and Italy last. The US did not participate in the problem solving test.

However, the survey also showed that Bermuda has one of the widest ?degrees of inequality? in the distribution of skills, meaning that while some residents are highly literate and numerate, others come at the bottom of the scale.

In prose literacy, the survey, coordinated by the OECD and Statistics Canada, said one in four of those surveyed in Bermuda are at the the highest two levels of the scale, the best performance of any country.

Sixty percent of those surveyed were in the top three levels, but just under 40 percent were placed at level one or level two, meaning they have difficulty making ?low level? inferences from texts, with 12 percent at level one in Bermuda.

Bermuda showed the most significant slippage between prose literacy and document literacy, with an eight percent decline in those at level three or higher, the survey said.

Bermuda also showed the steepest decline of the six countries when literacy and numeracy are compared, falling from 62 percent of adults at the top three levels in literacy to 46 percent on the numeracy scale.

In problem solving, just 30.1 percent of residents were placed in the top three levels, compared to 69.9 percent in the bottom two levels. Norway, which had the highest scores for problem solving, saw 39.2 percent place in the top three levels.

Other findings from the survey included:

Bermuda residents between the ages of 16 and 45 generally performed better on the literacy scale than residents between the ages of 45 and 65;

Women in Bermuda performed better than men in prose literacy, document literacy and problems solving but less well on the literacy scale;

The study found, unsurprisingly, that educational attainment was closely tied to skills literacy, but also found that these ties were less predictable among older people; and

Bermuda has fewer people involved in formal adult learning than any of the countries surveyed except Italy, but had the second highest number of people involved in what was classed as ?informal learning?.

The survey also found that Bermuda tends to reward residents with high levels of literacy and numeracy skills, negating educational attainment, the survey said.

?In Bermuda and Italy, the returns to skills tend to overshadow the effect of education,? the report said. ?After accounting for individual skills, wage returns tend to education are either zero or negative. This suggests that adults with additional years of schooling who do not display a commensurate level of skill are not rewarded for their additional schooling on the labour market.

The report said the US and Canada tended to separately reward skills and educational attainment while in Norway, skills also tended to overshadow education, but well-educated adults who lacked numeracy skills derived no benefit from additional years of schooling.