Correctional Services Canada
Other federal departments are involved in literacy, but less prominently.
In 1987 the federal Solicitor General announced a literacy initiative
in Canadian federal penitentiaries. Annually increasing targets were
set, for numbers of students to reach a grade eight level, through 1990.
This has recently been extended to include targets at the grade five
and ten levels. There are increasing efforts to integrate education
with other rehabilitative programs.
Indian Affairs and Northern Development
The mandate of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
includes providing basic services to status Indian communities, and
assisting native people to acquire employment skills. However, its adult
literacy activity is limited.
Newfoundland
Scattered part-time literacy programs in Newfoundland were developed
from 1969, and were sponsored after 1978 by the Division of Adult Education.
Although in 1979 and 1980 there were memorable advocacy events, with
extensive student involvement, programming did not expand. Even with
some Laubach Literacy activity (after 1983), there were only about 300
students in 1987.69 The 1986 Report of the Royal Commission
on Employment and Unemployment recommended "a co-ordinated programme
for improving literacy rates," starting with the elimination
of urban-rural discrepancies. Real expansion occurred only after the
deliberations of an Advisory Committee on Literacy Policy, struck in
1988, which drew attention to the decline of Newfoundland's resource-based
economy.70 There is now a provincial literacy policy co-ordinator;
five new regional colleges offer literacy programming; and there is
a strong emphasis on combining efforts with business, labour and voluntary
organizations. There are literacy teachers throughout the college system,
and in six community based programs and thirteen Laubach Literacy Councils.
The 1990 report, Literacy in an Achieving Society,71
says it is government policy that "All citizens of Newfoundland
and Labrador should have the opportunity to achieve literacy as a basic
human right."
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