National Adult Literacy Database

This document offers a straightforward summary of the second in a series of three reports on the results of the International Adult Literacy Survey or IALS, which began in 1994. The report was published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and Statistics Canada in 1997.

The authors explain that the IALS found that the role literacy plays in the determination of wages is greater in economies that are more flexible and open. This suggests that countries cannot depend solely on their educational systems to produce the skills needed by evolving societies and economies. They must also ensure that adequate learning opportunities are available to those who are at risk economically or socially because of their low skills. The report concludes by saying that countries can develop true cultures of lifelong learning only if social, economic, and education policies collectively focus on literacy issues.

This summary was prepared as part of a National Adult Literacy Database (NALD) project, funded by the Canadian Council on Learning (CCL), undertaken to offer researchers and other practitioners a resource for quickly assessing the relevance of online research documents from Statistics Canada.