They lack the self-confidence to develop their abilities, and have low, or often surprisingly unrealistic aspiration levels 50

The basic assumption of the "remediation" strategy is that when impoverished adults are helped to become more socially competent and more productive and stable as workers, the self-perpetuating poverty "cycle" will be broken. Literacy training is often considered to be the essential starting point for change, as functional literacy is a prerequisite for advance in other areas, especially job training. 51

Sometimes these remedial education and training activities are built into a "community development" approach, which solicits some form of participation of the poor in groups or communities in the assessment of needs and the planning and provision of the new opportunities. Consistent with the "adaptation" model, this form of community development is essentially aimed at enabling a group or community to achieve accommodation within, rather than to radically transform, the prevailing socio-economic system. 52

The remediation or adaptation approach presupposes that governments serve as the source of funding. Public investments in the human capital of the poor are considered justified in view of the failure of private decision-making within the context of a private market economy to distribute human capital in an equitable manner. It is argued that these investments will yield a high return both in terms of social benefits accruing to the entire society, and also in narrow economic terms, i.e. in increased incomes for the poor and consequent growth in the economy. For example, in 1969 an influential American economist, Lester Thurow, wrote that:

Private decisions will not lead to the socially desired distribution of human capital... the market for human capital is imperfect ... the distribution of investment in human capital must be altered by public policies .... Given the general characteristics of the poor, large returns could be earned by remedial programs designed to raise everyone in the labor force to at least eighth grade standards of literacy. The social benefits from such a program are large, but from a narrow economic point of view also the benefits are also large .... Without this level of education, training has little payoff .... Since most individuals in this low range are beyond the normal school age, efforts to bring the working population up to this standard must focus on adult education programs. This is precisely the area where the least effort has been made in educational programs for the poor. 53

Orthodoxy

The liberal deficiency-remediation perspective provided the theoretical linchpin of what was a remarkable convergence of interests in the late 1960's and early 1970's period. On one hand, it supplied political elites with the rationale for one phase of a government sponsored "war on poverty" which responded to the problem by altering the characteristics of the victims--the poor--while leaving intact the basic economic and political institutions of Canadian society. For, adult educators, it formed the theoretical basis for new programs to deal with the long-neglected problem of illiteracy. As well, it rationalized a not-inconsiderable increase in employment opportunities for the profession. (In fact, adult basic educators had not even constituted a distinct professional group within the field of adult education in Canada until the new employment opportunities in the academic upgrading component of the Canada Manpower Training Program caused their numbers to grow rapidly.) 54 Finally, for impoverished and unemployed Canadians, the liberal perspective guided and informed the development of what was touted as a major new avenue for economic and social advancement.