SPECIAL ISSUE ON LITERACY AND EMPLOYMENT
Challenging the Myths About Literacy
Following are key passages from a speech given by Jim Page, guest speaker at the Literacy Partners of Manitoba's Annual General Meeting on November 23, 1996 in Winnipeg. Jim Page is the Executive Secretary of the National Literacy Secretariat, and the Office of Learning Technologies, Human Resources Development Canada.
8 Truths of the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS)
1. IALS has already proven to be the most important study on literacy undertaken in Canada to date. As an international collaborative study it will affect the way that other nations of the world think about literacy.
2. IALS places literacy at the heart of learning, social, cultural and economic well being. The two IALS studies advance our understanding of literacy in revolutionary ways. Why revolutionary? Because IALS debunks some long-held myths while challenging conventional wisdom about adult literacy. Because IALS provides new insights into how skills are acquired and lost. And because IALS presents the first measures of literacy across cultures, languages and nations.
3. IALS provides the perspective to identify and to analyze, in greater depth than previously possible, factors which contribute to or inhibit the development of literacy skills.
4. IALS says to macroeconomists, to senior policy makers, to politicians at all levels, to bureaucrats, to business people, and to the media that literacy matters more to individuals and to countries than anyone ever thought possible, certainly more than people have been willing to recognize until now. Literacy is at the heart of every Canadian's ability to participate as a full citizen in our society.
5. IALS provides insights for education and economic policy, labour and training policy, social policy, and health and criminal justice policy.
6. IALS encourages business to think of literacy as the strategic asset that will allow Canada to prosper, to obtain its share of high-wage, high-skill jobs from the global economy.
7. IALS says clearly to business that the literacy of their workers is an asset that must be nurtured as carefully as all other assets if Canada and Canadian-based enterprises are to be competitive.
8. IALS highlights the growing gap between the profile of the high literacy skills required by jobs in the new economy on the one hand, and the comparatively low level skills of our workforce on the other.
The messages IALS carries to individuals are
relatively simple:
Stay in school -
Be a lifelong learner -
Use it or lose it.
Literacy Pays Off.
Read the reports for IALS
results: Literacy, Economy
& Society (1995)
Reading the Future,
Stats Canada (1996).
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