42% of Canadians are Functionally Illiterate - I'm calling bullshit

The Green candidate made this statement in the Global candidates' forum this morning. No one questioned him on it.

My dad was a teacher, and I remember when he did his masters, he tested tons of his students. It was shocking how poorly some of them did but....42%

They were talking about the homeless in the conversation. Perhaps he meant 42% of them are functionally illiterate.

Am I off base, or did he misspeak?

I would be willing to bet that the literacy rate in Canada is one of the highest in the world - higher than that of the USA, I am sure...

According to Statistics Canada:
In Canada, in 2000, 42% of adults did not have the necessary literacy skills to function as workers, citizens and family members in a modern economy.

http://www.adultlearning.unesco.ca/naviguer.php?section=1&identite=4&langue=an

I would not have believed it to be true, myself...I still have trouble believing it, really...Though it doesn't say they are "functionally illiterate," it says they are "illiterate, functionally..."

It sounds like 42% of Homeless is what he meant.

That's the MSM NOT doing it's job, in my opinion.

But the other candidate didn't call him on it either and they were the ones debating.

It covers people who can read street signs and get around, sign their names on a contract, even use check lists. However, those people can't write directions out for someone else, read the whole contract and interpret it correctly, and generate those check lists. They probably don't write letters or read books, although they may be able to read short magazine or tabloid articles with lots of pictures to help them out. What little they do write has the most creative of spelling.

I was a paid tutor when I went through nursing school. I'd say that 42% might be on the low side.

:shrug:

Sorry, it was just too funny a slip to pass up...

Give me a break though, I haven't had my breakfast yet.

I just thought it was funny.

:)

What's the funny part of this post? Was it edited? :shrug:

The original title read "42% of Canadian".

This is from an article published 2 days ago:

Canada's adult literacy rate has remained virtually unchanged in last decade, Statistics Canada reports.

Despite Canada's efforts to eradicate illiteracy, the average adult Canadian still reads at the level they did in 1994, according a Statscan study released Wednesday.

There were, however, marginal improvements in the number of Canadians with the poorest literacy levels.

In 1994, 17 per cent of Canadian adults ranked at the bottom of the scale in literacy. That figure dropped to 15 per cent in 2003, but Statscan was quick to point out that this still translates into more than three million Canadians who experience significant difficulties reading.

The Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey conducted by Statscan in 2003 tested the literacy skills of 23,000 Canadians aged 16 to 65. The results were compared with six other countries: Bermuda, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, the United States and the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon.

Proficiency was tested in four areas: prose, as in books or newspapers; documents, such as graphs and charts; numeracy or mathematical concepts; and in problem solving or analytic reasoning.

In general, Canada ranked in middle of the pack, slightly above their American counterparts in all areas. Nearly 60 per cent of those Canadians surveyed demonstrated an ability to meet everyday requirements.

In prose, Canada was third, behind Norway and Bermuda. In document comprehension, Canada was second only to Norway. In numeracy, third behind Switzerland and Norway; and in problem solving, again third behind Norway and Switzerland.

The definition of "literacy" is important. Another Statscan survey I found said (basically) the following:

- around 16% of Canadians have difficulty dealing with any printed materials (note this figure also includes people who's native language is not English or French).

- an additional 22% have difficulty with reading materials that are not in a highly familiar, constrained, or organized context.

Both these figures together add up to close to 40%, which corresponds very closely to the figure cited by the anonymous source (42%). In other words, around 40% of the population has difficulty dealing with more complex or unfamiliar written materials of the type that you might have to face in the everyday working environment. Thus it looks like there is a severe literacy problem in Canada, but compared to other countries (particularly the U.S.), the numbers are not all that bad.

in English or French but who could be literate in Mandarin or some other language?

It was the Green party candidate for Vancouver-Burrard (I couldn't even begin to spell his name.)

other than English or French. This probably artificially inflates the figures.

Also I suspect they are using a dubious definition of functional literacy. If 42% of the population "did not have the necessary literacy skills to function as workers, citizens and family members in a modern economy" (as per the claim in the link posted by Village Idiot), the economy would be in a lot worse shape than it is. That would essentially mean that 2 in 5 Canadians are incapable of anything beyond sitting on their porch all day sucking down tall boys. I call bullshit too.

I think that may have been badly phrased. A modern economy still has places for illiterate workers, they just aren't very good ones. So the people in question "did not have the necessary literacy skills to", say, have any but the most minimal and unrewarding options and opportunities "as workers, citizens and family members in a modern economy".

Their employment opportunities are limited to burger flipping (i.e. unskilled and low-paid labour without the chance to advance, generally), their citizenship opportunities (informed participation in democratic processes like voting and even neighbourhood improvement efforts, and also communicating with government agencies and obtaining government services) are limited, and as family members they are largely precluded from acquiring various new information and skills for good parenting (nutrition, health care ...) -- and helping the kids with the homework is kind of out of the question.

And of course one of the very key factors in kids' academic success is parental commitment to education, and it's hard to be committed when you can't even understand what's going on; from the article:

Statscan found that in all participating countries, young people whose parents had completed 12 years of schooling or more had higher literacy rates. In Canada, those whose parents completed high school, scored 24 points higher than those whose parents had only completed eight years of schooling.

Now somebody just needs to tell the Globe writer that there is no comma after "high school" in that last sentence. Are there no copy editors?? Of course there aren't ...

I thought I might have to do that. ;) I knew I'd read it in the print edition, and didn't relish trying to find it on line.

Using a line from what you reproduced, I found the link:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050511.wliteracy0511/BNStory/National

That doesn't seem to be the complete article; the print edition addressed the question of people who don't have English or French as their mother tongue. The article said that newcomers were doing well in terms of acquiring literacy skills and did not account for a significantly disproportionate part of the adult population with poor literacy.

But the thing is ... being literate in an official language is a completely different issue from being literate. Obviously it's important to someone living in Canada to be literate in an official language, but someone who isn't could still be highly literate in another language. That would mean that while s/he might not be able to read a cereal box, s/he could still read books and newspapers, and use the internet, in his/her own language, and so hardly be "illiterate". I'm not sure that Stats Can is making the distinction.

Another point made in the print article (that may explain why yvr girl's father's results varied) is that literacy actually declines after high school. It appears that many people are not called on to use literacy skills, and not offered continuing learning opportunities to maintain and improve them, once they're no longer in school.

Damn that Norway, eh? They're beating us at altogether too many of what are supposed to be our own games these days.

I've got to admit that I had a more intelligent conversation with the last homeless Canadian I ran into than with most of the people I run into in the states.

If that makes you feel any better.

http://www.oecd.org/document/28/0,2340,en_2649_201185_34010524_1_1_1_1,00.html

Scroll down to the bottom and click the Excel file called "Mean scores in mathematics, reading, science and problem solving in OECD countries and all countries"