Almost half of Canadians will continue to have low literacy skills, says report

One thing all magazines have in common is the need for a steady supply of people with decent reading skills. But according to the Canadian Council on Learning in a comprehensive study called Reading the Future, more than 15 million people aged 16 and over -- representing about 46 per cent of the population -- will have skills below the internationally accepted standard of literacy by 2031. This according to a story carried by The Vancouver Sun.

Essentially, the report attacks the complacent view of Canadians that adult literacy is getting steadily better; in fact, the proportion of low literacy will remain virtually unchanged projected through 2031.

• Senior citizens with low literacy skills will double to more than 6.2 million
• Immigrants with substandard skills will soar by more than 61 per cent
• The proportion of young adults who have difficulty in reading and comprehension will remain virtually the same.
• The number of Canadian adults with high literacy skills will increase but won't offset the growing populations of groups with low literacy skills.

"It isn't a good picture and it's contrary to what people had assumed. People had assumed because education is better than it's been in previous generations, and because young people are more literate than older people, that the problem would take care of itself over time, but what this shows is it definitely will not," said Dr. Paul Cappon, president and CEO of the council...."What I'm hoping is that the current conditions that we are describing that give rise to these projections, won't be the case if we do something about it," he said.

The study determined that most adults with low literacy skills feel those abilities are "adequate" for their work, that many have not finished high school, that a large proportion have jobs and that many have negative attitudes toward computers.