Chapter 1
Provincial, territorial and international
comparisons of adult competencies

This chapter compares the profiles of the adult population in the ten provinces and three territories, in terms of average scores and proficiency levels in four domains: prose literacy, document literacy, numeracy and problem solving. It situates the provinces and territories internationally by comparing them to the six countries other than Canada that participated in the 2003 ALL. Finally, it compares results from the 1994 IALS to those of 2003 for the prose and document domains.

Average proficiency scores of provinces and territories

The average proficiency scores of the adult population aged 16 and over in the Yukon, Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia are above the Canadian averages across all four domains measured in the IALSS 2003 (See Text Box A1) while those of New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador and Nunavut are below. Nova Scotia, the Northwest Territories, Manitoba, Ontario and Prince Edward Island have average scores that are not statistically different than the Canadian averages. In Quebec, the average scores for the two literacy domains are below the national averages while for the numeracy and problem solving domains there is no difference (Table 1.1).

Text table 1.1