Since they quit teaching cursive writing in the schools,most of our younger students can not even print legibly. Writing is something imperitive for our students, they must make notes on repair orders legibly,they must sign off repair orders and they should take notes when trying to diagnose complicated repairs. Not being able to print or write legibly is an insurmountable problem in a technical field. We now have to do basic english and math skills as a part of normal class work.We teach and grade them on their paper work as well as technical prowess. They must be able to generate a legible, gramatically correct repair order,to begin a technical task.This repair order must pass the Instructers requirements and if not they must do it over until it does.I am now getting students that have graduated from high school that are fuctionally illerate, they barely read, cannot use a ruler, and cannot read an analog wall or time clock, couple this with not being able to write or print and we are now faced with a much more demanding set of tasks