Recent literacy programming development

Once literacy is on the public agenda, what actually happens in literacy work depends largely on the governmental processes through which policies are drafted and programs are established and supported. These processes are defined in many documents — including not only so-called policy statements, but also legislation, funding formulas, application forms, reporting requirements, and so on. These documents define not only whether program support is available, but also in what forms it is available.

 Since 1985, every province and territory has seen some increase in literacy activity.⁴⁹ However, literacy work in different provinces and territories is differently and unevenly developed. Governments have shaped their involvements in literacy with different adult education traditions, and with different financial resources. Although data is very scant, one might wonder if the extent of literacy programming isn't roughly in inverse relation to the numbers in any province or territory who have limited literacy. Indeed it not the number of people with limited literacy that determines the extent of programming. It is rather the financial resources that a government commands to address literacy, and the ways that these resources are claimed by political forces, and managed by parties in power and by civil servants. The devolution of financial responsibility to the provinces likely means that the uneven development of literacy programming across the country will increase, barring some off-setting renewal of regional equalization.

It is striking that Ontario and Québec have been distinctive in the high level of their expansions of programming.⁵⁰ Although detailed historical studies should be done, it is plausible to suggest that the distinctiveness of development in Ontario and Québec is due to unique social and economic forces. In Québec, strong currents of promotion of the French language, and of social democratic politics, continuing from the Quiet Revolution, informed government policy in the early 1980s. Even since then, governments have been committed to provincial control of human resources and the economy, and at the same time faced an historically undertrained labour force. Ontario in the late 1980s had a booming economy, in which many industries were adopting new forms of work organization and new technology, that brought out new forms of "functional illiteracy." There was at the same time a historically developed community model for literacy work, with its origins in ESL programming, and a fortuitous collection of "liberal" civil servants and Ministers who either actively promoted literacy or were receptive to proposals.