Despite relatively high education rates, an analysis of international assessments by Statistics Canada in 2013 showed that more than one in six adult Canadians fell short of passing the most basic set of literacy tests.
does this actually surprise anyone? what did you think? that you send people to school and then you get doctors? philosophers? priests? lol don’t make me laugh
the “priesthood of all christians” failed in 1500, it’s gonna fail again
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Very interesting article! I’m not Canadian, but while Canadians were the focus, the problems sound pretty universal. More reliance on tech, changing job markets, and people not continuously learning and practicing their more basic skills like reading, composition and math are going to be a major hinderance as tech starts to replace jobs where people have comfortably been able to coast on a lot of these skills and will have problems finding better jobs.
Your bot is double posting mate.
Thanks. I deleted the second post.
this title implies you also struggle with literacy.
sorry, that was mean
Found the Canadian
Alright the information seems to be from reputable sources, the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIACC) and the conference board of Canada. It’s not that people are illiterate but that they struggle with a high school level English reading comprehension test. It seems it was more like 1/6 back in 2013
Read again. Scores have been steady since 2013. In both tests, ~1\6 of the group scored 1 or less, and in recent years 1/2 scored 2 or less.
That cannot be accurate. I don’t for a minute believe half of canadians struggle with literacy.
1 in 6 sure.
This is a bad study, I don’t even have to read about it’s methodology to know that.
It’s a good study, but reporting on the results is consistently garbage. In both rounds of testing, canada tested in the middle of the pack among oecd countries. I usually have to copy-paste the following in America Bad circlejerk threads when the US’s similar results are discussed:
Another day, another time I have to copy-paste this comment clarifying the 54% stat [the “nearly half” in the headline for canadians]:
For clarity: this is based on piaac test results. The literacy test results are sorted into 6 categories (1-5 and <1) for comparing the distribution internationally. 54% of Americans score less than 3, compared to top-scoring Japan and top-english-speaking Australia at approximately 35% and 45%. The task description for level 3:
Adults at Level 3 are able to construct meaning across larger chunks of text or perform multi-step operations in order to identify and formulate responses. They can identify, interpret or evaluate one or more pieces of information, often employing varying levels of inferencing. They can combine various processes (accessing, understanding and evaluating) if required by the task . Adults at this level can compare and evaluate multiple pieces of information from the text(s) based on their relevance or credibility. Texts at this level are often dense or lengthy, including continuous, noncontinuous, mixed. Information may be distributed across multiple pages, sometimes arising from multiple sources that provide discrepant information. Understanding rhetorical structures and text signals becomes more central to successfully completing tasks, especially when dealing with complex digital texts that require navigation. The texts may include specific, possibly unfamiliar vocabulary and argumentative structures. Competing information is often present and sometimes salient, though no more than the target information. Tasks require the respondent to identify, interpret, or evaluate one or more pieces of information, and often require varying levels of inferencing. Tasks at Level 3 also often demand that the respondent disregard irrelevant or inappropriate text content to answer accurately. The most complex tasks at this level include lengthy or complex questions requiring the identification of multiple criteria, without clear guidance regarding what has to be done
I could not find which source originally cited level 2 as “6th grade” equivalent, though the oecd recommends against drawing that parallel
“This sounds wrong so it must be a bad study, I won’t even bother checking” :(
50% is such a laughably high number, yes. Exactly that.
Spoilers, Robert Maxwell fucked over Canadian schools too. I’m not sure why Canadians believe they’re so separate from the U.S., but you should probably re-examine that belief.
Do you think 50% of americans can’t fucking read well? Because if so you are fucking wrong.
Some clown in the 80s decided that learning to read by memorizing what words look like and guessing from context clues was superior to phonics - learning to associate sounds and letters, aka “sounding it out.” It infested some parts of Canada, but I get the impression it was much more widespread and systemic in the states for longer.
I don’t give a fuck, you are wrong if supporting this. Get real.
Brother in 2023 54% of adults in the U.S. read below a 6th grade level and 64% of our fourth graders did not read proficiently.
You need to take a step back, because the only one here who’s dead wrong is you.
Bullshit!
Says the man clearly living under a rock. I suggest you do some reading.
The article addresses that actually. Says it was around 1/6 in 2013.
That was 13 years ago. As to close to the start of the millenium as it is to now.
I’m sure it’s only gotten
betterworse since then.
