Report & Resource Guide – Integrating Essential Skills into Training Materials

The International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS)

Information courtesy of the following HRDC (now HRSDC) publications:

Reading the Future: a Portrait of Literacy in Canada (Backgrounder and Highlights)
Literacy Skills for the Knowledge Society (Backgrounder and Highlights)
Literacy in the Information Age: Final Report of the International Adult Literacy Survey (Highlights)

(www.nald.ca/nls/ials/introduc.htm)

Some of the findings

In Canada, 42 per cent of all adults aged 16 to 65 are at levels 1 or 2 on the prose literacy scale, while 43 per cent are at levels 1 or 2 on the document and quantitative scales. These individuals have literacy skills below what is considered a suitable minimum for coping with demands of everyday life and work in a complex, advanced society. But even in Sweden, where average literacy scores are high, 28 per cent of all adults aged 16 to 65 are at levels 1 or 2 on the prose scale.
23 per cent of Canadian adults are at level 4/5 on the prose literacy scale. Sweden is the only IALS country with a larger proportion of adults at this level, at 32 per cent.
Of the countries included in the IALS, Sweden has the highest average scores on all three scales (from 301 to 306 points) while Chile has the lowest average scores (from 209 to 221 points).
On the prose literacy scale, Canada ranks 5th (at 279 points) behind Sweden, Finland, Norway and the Netherlands. The United States and the United Kingdom rank 10th and 13th respectively.
On the document literacy scale, Canada ranks 8th (at 279 points) behind the Nordic countries, Denmark, Germany and the Czech Republic. Australia ranks 11th on that scale while the United States and United Kingdom are further down the list ranking 15th and 16th respectively.
On the quantitative literacy scale, Canada ranks 9th (at 281 points), again below the countries of Northern European and the Czech Republic. Australia and the United States rank 12th and 13th respectively, while the United Kingdom ranks 17th.
Overall, Canada ranks amongst the top countries on the prose scale but is in the middle of the pack on the quantitative (numeracy) scale.
In Canada, the range of scores between the 5th and 95th percentile is consistently large. On the prose scale, the difference in literacy scores between these percentiles is 219 points - the third largest difference of all countries included in the IALS study. This means that the discrepancy between people with low and high literacy skills is far larger in Canada than it is in many European countries, such as Denmark, Norway, Germany, Finland and Sweden. The same pattern is found on the document and quantitative literacy scales.