CASP

Community Academic Services Programs, or CASPs, initiated in NB in 1991, provide quality, community-based, academic learning opportunities to adults, at no cost to the learner. The local, provincial, and federal governments partner with business, industry, and community to provide resources necessary to address local literacy problems.

CASPs are available in both official languages and some operate for special needs learners or workplace training requirements. The programs provide small classes and flexible schedules to promote self-directed learning at one’s own pace. CASP facilitators guide adult learners in their pursuit of personal excellence.

Literacy coordinators work from the Bathurst, Campbellton, Edmundston, Dieppe, Miramichi, Moncton, Saint John, St. Andrews, Acadian Peninsula, and Woodstock Community Colleges to promote and provide educational support to literacy programs in their regions.

Literacy

The 1994 International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) defined literacy as

“the ability to understand and employ printed information in daily activities at home, at work, and in the community, to achieve one’s goals and to develop one’s knowledge and potential.”

A person with low literacy skills may not be able to read a book to a child, read warning labels and greeting cards, or even use a phone book. Tasks such as counting out money, reading medicine labels or bus schedules, writing a cheque or money order, filling out job forms, using a banking machine or debit card may be too difficult for some. One in four New Brunswickers cannot read, write, or do math well enough to meet daily needs.

One must see that many people, beyond those who cannot read or write at all, need literacy training. Higher levels of education are required in order to succeed in today’s computerized world. More residents of New Brunswick are being socially isolated or left behind and more deeply lodged in the poverty- welfare cycle. Low literacy skills affect all of us and cost us more each year.

It’s the goal of provincial literacy organizations to involve New Brunswickers in literacy initiatives so that no one needs to feel left out. With the help of volunteers, literacy practitioners, and sponsors, this province will continue to offer literacy training programs to meet individual needs for learners.