1. Background

In 1994, nine countries (Canada, Germany, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland,Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States) fielded the International Adult LiteracySurvey (IALS), the world's first large-scale, comparative assessment of adult literacy. InDecember 1995, Statistics Canada and the OECD published Literacy, Economy and Society: Results of the First International Adult Literacy Survey (OECD and Statistics Canada, 1995), a report that presented data for seven of the countries that participated in the first round of the IALS data collection.

Encouraged by the IALS success, five countries (Australia, the Flemish community in Belgium, Great Britain, New Zealand, and Northern Ireland) decided to administer the IALS instruments in 1996. Data from this round of collection was released in November 1997 in Literacy Skills for the Knowledge Society: Further results of the International Adult Literacy Survey (OECD and HRDC, 1997).

Finally, nine countries (Chile, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hungary,Italy, Norway, Slovenia, and Switzerland) participated in a third, large-scale round of data collection in 1998. Data for 22 countries was published by Statistics Canada and the OECD as Literacy Skills for the Information Age: Final Report of the International Adult Literacy Survey (2000).

Since that time Japan, Malaysia, Portugal, Ontario, China and Vanuatu have also successfully collected data with instruments derived from IALS.

IALS provided previously unavailable information on the distribution of adult literacy and numeracy skills and has provided tantalising insight into the causes and consequences of these skills for a range of countries.

Key findings include:

  1. Important differences in literacy skills exist across and within nations,differences that are much larger than suggested by differences in national educational attainment profiles.
  2. Literacy skill deficits are not only found among marginalised groups,but affect large portions of the entire adult population.
  3. Literacy is strongly correlated with life chances and use of opportunities,both social and economic.
  4. Literacy is not synonymous with educational attainment.
  5. Literacy skills, like muscles, are maintained and strengthened through regular use.
  6. Adults with low literacy skills do not usually acknowledge or recognize that their skills may pose a problem.