While the findings are suggestive, the small variations observed in the literacy profiles of 1994 and 2003 in relation to the magnitude of the combined error associated with these estimates suggest the need to remain cautious in interpretation. That some improvement is observed for some geographic entities must be tempered with the knowledge that changes in the literacy profiles in Canada, if real statistically, were quite small on a macro level. For this reason, this report will re-examine the issue in subsequent chapters. Are there specific demographic groups that show more marked change than others? Could the small, observed change in the national average mask a larger, more important shift in the scores of specific sub-groups? These are questions that will be addressed in the remainder of this report.
This chapter presents a comparative perspective on the levels and distributions of adult proficiency in four domains – prose literacy, document literacy, numeracy and problem solving – for the provinces and territories, for Canada, and for other countries that participated in the 2003 ALL survey. In addition, prose and document literacy scores in 1994 and 2003 are compared.
The results show that literacy in Canada is not uniformly distributed. The average literacy, numeracy and problem solving scores of adults in the Yukon, Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia are significantly higher than the national average. Scores in New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nunavut are lower than the Canadian average across all four domains.
There are large numbers of adults aged 16 and over in all provinces and territories with low levels of literacy in 2003. Nationally, 48 percent of this adult population – 12 million Canadians over the age of 16 – perform below Level 3 on the prose and document literacy scales (about 9 million or 42 percent of Canadians aged 16 to 65). They are likely to face real challenges coping with the emerging skill demands of a knowledge-based economy.
The literacy scores show very little variation between 1994 and 2003. In most provinces and territories, the average literacy scores appear to be somewhat higher in 2003 than in 1994 but the differences are not statistically significant. The exceptions are Quebec, where a marked improvement in prose literacy is observed, and the Atlantic region, with a significant increase in document literacy.