Tuesday, May 17, 2005

SPOTLIGHT: Adult literacy

Literacy rate fails to budge

THE LITERACY rate among Canadian adults has remained virtually unchanged during the past nine years, according to the first round of a major new survey that measured literacy skills in Canada and six other countries in 2003.

As in 1994, a significant number of Canadian adults aged 16 to 65 had low-level literacy skills which may have had an impact on their participation in society and in the economy. However, there were marginal improvements among those with the poorest literacy levels.

The Adult Literacy and Life Skills (ALL) Survey tested more than 23,000 Canadians in 2003 on their skills proficiency in four scales: prose, document, numeracy and problem-solving. Skills were rated on the basis of levels one to five, that is, lowest to highest.

This report presents an initial set of findings covering Canada, Bermuda, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, the United States and the Mexican State of Nuevo Leon.

It found that the average literacy score for Canadians had not changed significantly during the nine-year period since the last major survey was conducted in 1994.

There was, however, a noticeable positive change in average scores among the 5% of adults with the lowest literacy scores. Overall, the survey found a slight decline in the inequality gap between adults with the lowest literacy levels, and those with the highest.

In Canada, about 58% of adults aged 16 to 65 possessed skills in the top three literacy levels on the prose scale, indicating that they could meet most everyday reading requirements.

Inequality gap

This result was in line with the findings of the International Adult Literacy Survey conducted in 1994. The two surveys employed the same general methodology. The prose scale tested the ability of participants to understand and use information contained in various types of written material.

At the same time, some 15% of Canadians, about one out of every seven, scored in level one, the lowest performance level. This was down slightly from 17% in 1994.

Regardless of the statistical significance associated with this drop, it still means that a large number of adults, well over three million Canadians aged 16 to 65, have problems dealing with printed materials and most likely identify themselves as people who have difficulty reading.

Skills in literacy are important because, in all participating countries, the study found a significant wage return for higher skill levels.

Middle of the pack

In general, the average performance of Canadian adults was in the middle of the pack on all four scales. In the prose scale, Canadians were third behind Norway and Bermuda; in document comprehension (reading graphs and charts), second only to Norway; in numeracy, third behind Switzerland and Norway; and in problem-solving, third behind Norway and Switzerland.

Norway was the only country to have 60% or more of its adult population performing at the three highest levels on each of the prose, document and numeracy scales. In contrast, about 58% of Canadians performed at these levels on the prose and document scales, and only 50% of Canadians reached level 3 on the numeracy scale.

Both Canadians and Americans performed relatively better in prose and document skills than they did in numeracy. The numeracy scale encompassed a broad range of mathematical problems, from simple counting to integrating multiple types of mathematical information.

You can read the full report "Learning a living: First results of the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey, 2003” on our website.

For more information, contact Client Services (1-800-307-3382), Centre for Education Statistics.

  Print article

© 2004, 2005 Statistics Canada.