Newfoundland: highest illiteracy rate, least able to cope

"No," says Dr. Keith Winter, "I haven't ever actually met an illiterate. Not that I knew of, anyhow." A frank admission, but puzzling, since Winter has had plenty of opportunity.

First, he's the top official in the Newfoundland government's department that looks after adult literacy programs.

Second, the province has Canada's highest functional illiteracy rate, 44 per cent of all adults compared to 24 per cent nationally, according to the Southam survey. One in five Newfoundlanders is a basic illiterate, barely able to read and write.

On the island's west coast, the Bay St. George's Community College estimates 80 to 90 per cent in some villages are unable to adequately read and write.

Although it has the nation's worst literacy problem, Newfoundland spends the least— $340,000 in provincial funds or only $2 per illiterate a year.

In the late 1970's, Newfoundland was an innovator in literacy teaching, staging imaginative conferences at which government departments went on trial over unreadable publications and delegates had to find their way through a maze with signs in Chinese and Hindi.

Literacy classes then cost only $6 a term and nearly 300 were enrolled. By this year, fees were $35 and there were still only 300 spots.

Says deputy minister Winter: "The amount we can put into literacy is considerably less than we would like. Part of the salvation for our problem has to stem from getting more youngsters to stay longer in school." That salvation may be an illusion. A royal commission reported in 1986 that Newfoundland youth are on the way to becoming a "lost generation" because one in three can't find work even after graduating from high school or university.

The literacy survey discovered Newfoundlanders think today's education is much improved over grade school in the past. Getting at least a high school education is considered more important than anywhere else in Canada by a wide margin.

Wally knows the value of education. On every job application, he lists his Grade 11 certificate.

"I can't lie," he tells a visitor to an adult learning centre only 15 minutes drive from Dr. Winter's office in the Department of Career Development and Advanced Studies.

With his bright, blue eyes and an almost albino complexion, Wally, 30, reads at about the level of a Grade 5 pupil.

"I can read; I'm not stund," he says, using the Newfoundland contraction for stunned, meaning stupid.

"I was trying to read at the wrong level. I came here and they gave me some of the books at my level and I went right through them in an evening." Wally is lucky. His wife found the only adult basic education course in St. John's and he can afford both the fee and the time to attend four nights a week. Even though the course isn't widely advertised, the 40 spots fill quickly each term.

"We have to make it easier for people to come to literacy classes," says instructor Susan Hoddinott. "Make it available without charge and that would get all the people who are motivated." Motivation wasn't lacking for the delivery van driver who turned up at a literacy program: he couldn't read street signs.

He managed to deliver parcels by deliberately going past where he thought the street was, asking directions and then going past in the reverse direction, thus gradually zeroing in on the target.

"I sure uses up a lot of gas when I'm delivering," the driver chortles.

But there's little government help in the offing for many like him. The province has rejected a proposal by its own literacy experts to double funds for literacy programs and launch a publicity drive.

Instead, it will continue pouring money into training young Newfoundlanders for jobs someday in the Hibernia oil field.

"The No. 1 problem is that many people in charge don't see literacy as a problem. Even if they do, they don't know what to do about it," says Richard Fuchs, secretary of the provincial adult education association.