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Source : International Adult Literacy and Skills Survey, 2003
The relationship between educational attainment and literacy proficiency is evident in the provinces and territories with some variation observed in individual jurisdictions. At the national level, individuals with a university degree score on average 77 points higher than those with less than a high school education. Compared to the national average, this difference is less pronounced in Manitoba and more pronounced in Nunavut, Newfoundland and Labrador, Northwest Territories, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick.
The average prose proficiency scores of high school graduates from Ontario, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Nunavut are below Level 3 – the level of proficiency considered to be the “desired level” of competence for coping with the increasing skill demands of the emerging knowledge and information economy. Individuals with less than a high school education perform below Level 3 in all jurisdictions, and barely above Level 2 in several of them. Finally, university graduates throughout Canada have the highest and most homogeneous average prose literacy, but nevertheless fall short of Level 4.