By 1980, there was evidently a strong basis for literacy policy and programming. A number of meetings and reports had raised the profile of the literacy issue. Furthermore, the Québec government was keen to adopt an autonomous adult education and training policy, and to promote lifelong education. The popular groups held a key position in the early 1980s. Their number increased (from 13 in 1981, to 17 in 1982 and 30 in 1983). They developed diverse and experimental programming, including democratic structures; innovations in teaching materials, and practitioner training; and defence of the rights of illiterates.⁷⁸ A number of groups came together in 1981 to form le Regroupement des groupes populaires en alphabétisation du Québec (RGPAQ), which pushed for increased attention to literacy from all sectors of society, and for government policy. For some time it appeared — and many practitioners hoped — that literacy work would be an element of cultural development within the popular milieux.⁷⁹ This hope was encouraged by a 1980 government policy document that called for educational priority to the most disadvantaged areas, with responsibility and scope for experimentation given to local agencies.⁸⁰ Also the Commission d'étude sur la formation des adultes (CEFA), the "Jean Commission," which began work in 1980, was pushed to deal specifically with literacy, and its 1982 report⁸¹ called for basic education to be provided at no cost to adults, with a special campaign for "pure illiterates." In doing so, it highlighted Québec's history of "mutual education," organized without government intervention, and said,

The literacy campaign is specially designed to enable adults to take charge of and control their education. The campaign must therefore spring from organizations that have close ties with the adults affected. On the whole ... the Commission sees the campaign as an opportunity to develop independent alternatives that complement the existing school system.

However, the recession of the early 1980s, and a shift in political climate, arrived before government policy on literacy was pronounced. As a result, there has been over the 1980s in Québec an unusually clear articulation of different perspectives on the form that programming should take. The 1984 continuing education policy,⁸² the major policy document for the decade, has mixed implications. On the one hand, it makes the elimination of illiteracy a priority for action. It calls for "genuine access" to the schools by all groups, including explicitly "those most deprived of educational services." It resolves that basic education should be a right for all, regardless of age. Indeed, the 1989 Education Act made Québec the first jurisdiction in Canada to define in legislation the right of all residents to achieve a secondary diploma, and thus to literacy education. On the other hand, the 1984 policy shifts from a specific understanding of literacy to an integration of literacy into formal general education and training. Manpower training is the 1984 policy's explicit goal. The policy says that adult education should be "equivalent to the education of youth;" basic education is identified with a school diploma.⁸³