And, in Canada, the results of the 2003 International Adult Literacy and Skills Survey are out: and "nationally, 48 percent of the adult population – 12 million Canadians aged 16 and over– perform below Level 3 on the prose and document literacy scales...

"Level 3 proficiency is considered to be the “desired level” of competence for coping with the increasing skill demands of the emerging knowledge and information economy." (Those at Level 1 "have difficulty reading and have few basic skills or strategies for decoding and working with text. Generally, they are aware that they have a literacy problem." Those at Level 2 "are people with limited skills who read but do not read well. Canadians at this level can deal only with material that is simple and clearly laid out. People at this level often do not recognize their limitations." So half the population can only deal with simple material, if that...and "overall, there has been little change in literacy performance between 1994 and 2003."

for more info, see http://www.nald.ca/fulltext/booc/05.htm

Wrong war poetry

Students in England were taught the wrong syllabus for their GCSE English exams. Is this a Monty Python skit; I seem to recall? Could this be a clue as to why testing is inherently ludicrous and teaching to a test even more so?

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Literacy Idol

Ten almost good-looking wordies vote each other off the island, or, out of the Reference Library, Special Collections Rreading Room based on who can get along best with whom using the most erudite vocabulary. Well, not exactly -- Canada Post has an initiative worth knowing about.

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Literacy in the Arab world

A polemical article on education in the Arab countries; it's all a little frightening, folks:

Sadly, the bottom spot of the literacy rate, according to the EFA report 2003-4 was reserved for no other than Iraq, a country that was once recognised for being a Third World model of development. Along with Cuba, Iraq once offered universal education and health coverage. Now, following 15 years tainted by crippling sanctions, unjustified and bloody war, and a self-consumed and brutal occupation only 39.3 per cent of Iraqis can read.

What's the statistical figure measuring poverty and anger I wonder?

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Genghis Khan: new posterboy for literacy?

This'll definitely get the boys reading.

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