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What is literacy?

Literacy is crucial to the success of individuals in both their career aspirations and their quality of life.

It is more than a basic reading ability, but rather an indication of “how adults use written information to

function in society.”

Strong literacy skills are closely linked to the probability of having a good job, decent earnings, and

access to training opportunities. Individuals with weak literacy skills are more likely to be unemployed

or, if employed, tend to be in jobs that pay little or that offer poor hours or working conditions.

Traditionally, literacy has referred to the ability to read, understand, and use information. But the term

has come to take on broader meaning, standing for a range of knowledge, skills and abilities relating

to reading, mathematics, science and more. This reflects widespread and deep changes that have

taken place in technology and in the organization of work over the past quarter century. The ability to

use and apply key mathematics and science concepts is now necessary across a wide range of

occupations.

Why is literacy important?Literacy is fundamental for learning in school. It has an impact on an individual's ability to participate

in society and to understand important public issues. And it provides the foundation upon which skills

needed in the labour market are built.

Technology, and the science behind it, permeates all aspects of our lives, from how we work and

communicate to what we shop for and how we pay our bills. The complexity of today's world means

that individuals need to have some level of proficiency in reading, mathematics and science in order to

understand and participate fully in economic and social life.

A population's literacy skills also have a bearing on how well a country performs economically. The

world we live in today is vastly different from that of a generation ago. Technological change has

transformed the way in which work is done; competition in many industries is global in nature; and the

industrial structure of the Canadian labour market has rapidly evolved from a manufacturing and

agricultural base to one based on services. These changes have, in turn, brought rising skill

requirements. Countries that are successful in endowing their populations with strong skills are usually

in a better position to meet the economic challenges of operating in a globalized information

economy.

Finally, having a population that has strong literacy skills also places a country in a better position to

meet the complex social challenges that it faces. For example, strong literacy skills are linked to better

health outcomes for individuals. A highly literate population will be better able to deal with issues of

governance in a highly diverse society. And informed debate is needed to help us determine how best

we can allocate scarce resources across competing priorities, such as education, health, investment

in infrastructure, and social programs.

Measuring student achievement:

A key indicator of educational progress is the extent to which schools are successful in equipping their

students with strong literacy skills. This indicator consists of two components. The first component

relates to how well students perform on average, with higher average scores indicating, at a national

or provincial level, stronger academic achievement overall. The second component concerns the

range in scores between the top-performing students and those at the bottom of the distribution.

Equity considerations suggest that a system that is able to achieve high scores through the strongperformance of all students, regardless of their backgrounds, would be preferable to one where a

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strong average was the product of a small proportion of super achievers. There are efficiency reasons

for wanting to reduce the size of the gap between the top and the bottom as well-the evidence shows

that countries or provinces that have a narrower achievement gap also tend to have higher average

literacy scores than those where that gap is larger.

The role of socio-economic status:

Many factors affect the size of the achievement gap. One important factor is socio-economic status

(SES), which is typically measured based on parents’ education attainment, occupation, and/or

income. Numerous studies in many countries have found that there is a strong tendency for students

from families with higher SES to achieve higher scores than students from families with lower SES.

However, it is also the case that countries with high average reading achievement tend to have less

variability in scores across SES groups. The PISA results show that Canada had not only a smaller

gap in achievement between students from different backgrounds but also high scores across SES

groups. Germany, on the other hand, had the greatest gap in achievement when students with

different SES backgrounds were compared. Similar results were found for mathematics and scienceachievement.

However, as we have seen, family SES does not have a fixed effect. Some jurisdictions have made

better progress in reducing the negative impact of low SES than others and individual schools vary in

their success in this regard. The evidence also suggests that parents who are interested in and

involved with their children’s education and who provide a home environment that stimulates learning

have a positive impact on their children’s outcomes, regardless of their SES.

Achieving both high average literacy scores and low inequality scores are desirable, and as we have

seen, compatible goals. Part of the policy equation is understanding and assessing which policies and

practices work best so that all students can benefit, regardless of where they live or how well off their

parents are.