What can governments do to raise literacy rates in Canada?

August1991 · July 5, 2015

As a brainstorm, I can think of the following:

1. Increase funding for literacy education on reserves and increase transfer payments to ministries of education earmarked for literacy education.

....

2. Transfer funding to literacy. This would mean cutting other programs to do so, then have to decide which.

....

SecondClass Citizen, I'm going to take a wild guess that you work in the field of literacy - perhaps with aboriginals.

IOW, you are asking the rest of us to give money to a group of people when this in fact benefits you. In my world, that's called a "conflict of interest".

=====

I'm abroad at the moment and I passed by an older woman in the street (in fact a Metro underpass), bent over, without a leg (below the knee, she had no leg). She held a sign explaining that her son had died and she had no one else to help her.

SecondClass Citizen, between this woman and your request for help, why should I give money to your preferred charity rather than this honest woman abroad.

All things considered, I prefer to give money where the incentive creates the greatest good.

Edited July 5, 2015 by August1991

Derek 2.0 · July 5, 2015

The Green Party has proposed cutting much of the bureaucratic overhead by replacing the current system with a guaranteed income.

I've always been a strong believer in Friedman's flat tax combined with a negative income tax, doing away with the countless tax avoidance schemes, well also riding ourselves of the countless social welfare programs......to your concern of abuse, without a doubt there would still be examples of it, but if someone pissed away their monthly income, there would be zero safety net to fall into........fairness and Darwinism for the price of one.

Argus · July 5, 2015

But yes, requiring language tests to reside in Canada might raise the literacy rate in Canada. I say might because it could also result in literate Canadians leaving Canada,

How could it result in literate Canadians leaving? In any case, the real issue is illiterate immigrants and illiterate aboriginals, not illiterate Canadians in general.

Edited July 5, 2015 by Argus

cybercoma · July 5, 2015

I have a hard time believing that anybody who completes 9 to 12 years in a Canadian public or Catholic school system is illiterate

-k

The number that often gets thrown around is 40%. That's how many Canadians are said to have functional illiteracy, which is different from debilitating illiteracy.

Second-class Canadian · July 5, 2015

SecondClass Citizen, I'm going to take a wild guess that you work in the field of literacy - perhaps with aboriginals.

IOW, you are asking the rest of us to give money to a group of people when this in fact benefits you. In my world, that's called a "conflict of interest".

=====

I'm abroad at the moment and I passed by an older woman in the street (in fact a Metro underpass), bent over, without a leg (below the knee, she had no leg). She held a sign explaining that her son had died and she had no one else to help her.

SecondClass Citizen, between this woman and your request for help, why should I give money to your preferred charity rather than this honest woman abroad.

All things considered, I prefer to give money where the incentive creates the greatest good.

I work in the production of second-language instruction materials between three languages, so nowhere near any reserve. Also, since it involves second language educational materials, it would be useless to anyone who is illiterate in the mother tongue.

That said, had you been right, that would also have made me more knowledgeable about indigenous matters beyond statistics I'very read in books on the subject.

Though literacy is a matter I consider important, and I do in fact give to relevant charities, I also think the government wastes much money, considering spending on the separate school system and official bilingualism to be its most unfair subsidies that should be cut, especially if we're going to be under funding schools on reserves.

cybercoma · July 5, 2015

We can also include deaf, dyslexic (or at least severely dyslexic) and other Canadians suffering fetal alcohol syndrome, PTSD, etc. Though I don't remember the precise statistic, I remember reading that PTSD rates are extremely high among both children and adults on reserves.

What does being Deaf have to do with anything? I have Deaf friends who have English degrees and have gone on to become teachers.

Edited July 5, 2015 by cybercoma

Second-class Canadian · July 5, 2015

I've always been a strong believer in Friedman's flat tax combined with a negative income tax, doing away with the countless tax avoidance schemes, well also riding ourselves of the countless social welfare programs......to your concern of abuse, without a doubt there would still be examples of it, but if someone pissed away their monthly income, there would be zero safety net to fall into........fairness and Darwinism for the price of one.

That's counting on them using the money wisely. When dealing with addicts, they'l make stupid decisions while knowing full-well at the time that they are making stupid decisions.

For them, giving them money they need but in a more controlled manner becomes the issue without stigmatized them with coupons the rich don't use. The Green Party's proposal in a modified form might just do that. The rich would pay more in taxes but get a big chunk back so it comes to the same thing.

Second-class Canadian · July 5, 2015

How could it result in literate Canadians leaving? In any case, the real issue is illiterate immigrants and illiterate aboriginals, not illiterate Canadians in general.

Though emigration. How else? I'm thinking of it and I'm not the first. I remember a Canadian military member resigning and moving to Australia because his spouse could not obtain citizenship here. She spoke English, but I don't know the details as to why Canada didn't welcome her. I doubt it had to do with literacy in an official language though in her case. Either way, it's only common sense that stricter immigration laws will encourage emigration.

Edited July 5, 2015 by Second-class Canadian

Second-class Canadian · July 5, 2015

What does being Deaf have to do with anything? I have Deaf friends who have English degrees and have gone on to become teachers.

The prelingually profoundly deaf learn to pronounce through visual cues, meaning that the more phonetic the orthography is, the easier it is to learn to pronounce, and sinse the written language is a visual representation of the aural language, being able to do so accelerates literacy acquisition.

Additionally, dyslexics benefit significantly from auditory cues in learning to read, something Deaf dyslexics can't do.

According to a 2005 OECD study, English orthography is the most difficult to learn t read and write among major European languages, around three times more difficult than the Finnish and Greek orthographies, with French orthography being the second most difficult.

While none of this guarantees Deaf illiteracy, it definitely reduces the odds of success at least somewhat.

Edited July 5, 2015 by Second-class Canadian

-1=e^ipi · July 5, 2015

How could it be so bureaucratic if it's just all programmed on a debit card and an interactive machine? It would all be automated. To make sure the money is not blown all at once, make the deposits weekly rather than monthly

Even if you did this, there are 4 issues:

1. A person could simply use this card to buy essentials and then use money that they were intending to spend on essentials on drugs. So there is a substitution effect that is difficult to avoid.

2. It would still be somewhat more expensive to set up because then you would need someone to ensure no one is buying drugs or someone to decide which institutions are acceptable or not for using the money on.

3. You have the potential of some control-freak politician trying to impose their belief system about what is acceptable or not. Such as banning the usage of that money on reproductive health products.

4. Doing this may prevent the possibility of saving the money, thus would reduce Canada's savings rate.

Derek 2.0 · July 5, 2015

That's counting on them using the money wisely. When dealing with addicts, they'l make stupid decisions while knowing full-well at the time that they are making stupid decisions.

For them, giving them money they need but in a more controlled manner becomes the issue without stigmatized them with coupons the rich don't use. The Green Party's proposal in a modified form might just do that. The rich would pay more in taxes but get a big chunk back so it comes to the same thing.

That is the point, if everyone has a guaranteed income of 25k a year, there is then no excuse for people living under park benches.....hence those living under benches are there out of no fault other than their own.....at such a point, society can wash their hands of them.

Second-class Canadian · July 5, 2015

Even if you did this, there are 4 issues:

1. A person could simply use this card to buy essentials and then use money that they were intending to spend on essentials on drugs. So there is a substitution effect that is difficult to avoid.

2. It would still be somewhat more expensive to set up because then you would need someone to ensure no one is buying drugs or someone to decide which institutions are acceptable or not for using the money on.

3. You have the potential of some control-freak politician trying to impose their belief system about what is acceptable or not. Such as banning the usage of that money on reproductive health products.

4. Doing this may prevent the possibility of saving the money, thus would reduce Canada's savings rate.

I wasn't thinking of a foolproof system. Those who have no other income would be prevented from spending their basic income on drugs.

As for who could participate, it would seem to me that almost everything in a supermarket would be acceptable. It could be based more on a complaints system. Again, it would open the door to abuse to a degree, but the worst offenders would be taken out that way.

Perhaps saving only in a five-year locked investment could be allowed. If you can save money from the basic income for that long, then you're probably able to control your finances. That would serve as a reasonable loophole to convert money from the government debit card into paper money.

Second-class Canadian · July 5, 2015

That is the point, if everyone has a guaranteed income of 25k a year, there is then no excuse for people living under park benches.....hence those living under benches are there out of no fault other than their own.....at such a point, society can wash their hands of them.

Perhaps.

-1=e^ipi · July 5, 2015

That is the point, if everyone has a guaranteed income of 25k a year, there is then no excuse for people living under park benches.....hence those living under benches are there out of no fault other than their own.....at such a point, society can wash their hands of them.

Exactly. Plus you wouldn't have homeless people begging you for money on the streets all the time. It's annoying.

I wasn't thinking of a foolproof system. Those who have no other income would be prevented from spending their basic income on drugs.

I'm skeptical that the benefits would outweight the costs relative to other options. I'm open to the idea but it would have to be demonstrated to me that it makes sense relative to other options. A guaranteed income system is simpler and has less bureaucratic cost.

Also, I forgot one point:

5. Drug addicts may use their card to buy food and essentials and then trade them for drugs.

it would seem to me that almost everything in a supermarket would be acceptable.

Okay, now which bureaucrat or politician is defining what is and what isn't a super market. Do we have to hire a bunch of supermarket inspectors to ensure that a place counts as a supermarket? Does this definition have loop holes that allow things that aren't really supermarkets to claim to be supermarkets?

Perhaps saving only in a five-year locked investment could be allowed. If you can save money from the basic income for that long, then you're probably able to control your finances. That would serve as a reasonable loophole to convert money from the government debit card into paper money.

Now what prevents a drug addict from giving an IOU to the mafia to give them this locked investment in 5 years for drugs?

Second-class Canadian · July 5, 2015

Exactly. Plus you wouldn't have homeless people begging you for money on the streets all the time. It's annoying.

I'm skeptical that the benefits would outweight the costs relative to other options. I'm open to the idea but it would have to be demonstrated to me that it makes sense relative to other options. A guaranteed income system is simpler and has less bureaucratic cost.

Also, I forgot one point:

5. Drug addicts may use their card to buy food and essentials and then trade them for drugs.

Okay, now which bureaucrat or politician is defining what is and what isn't a super market. Do we have to hire a bunch of supermarket inspectors to ensure that a place counts as a supermarket? Does this definition have loop holes that allow things that aren't really supermarkets to claim to be supermarkets?

Now what prevents a drug addict from giving an IOU to the mafia to give them this locked investment in 5 years for drugs?

Again, I never intended for a fool proof system, just one that would make it difficult. Instead of inspectors, we could have a complaints hotline. It would reduce the need for inspectors. Again, this would allow abuses on occasion, but would be dofficult. Or instead of defining what it can buy, it could define instead what it can't buy.

Argus · July 5, 2015

Though emigration. How else? I'm thinking of it and I'm not the first. I remember a Canadian military member resigning and moving to Australia because his spouse could not obtain citizenship here. She spoke English, but I don't know the details as to why Canada didn't welcome her. I doubt it had to do with literacy in an official language though in her case. Either way, it's only common sense that stricter immigration laws will encourage emigration.

I disagree. You're talking about specific, unique cases. In any event, we would have no difficulty attracting as many English speaking or French speaking immigrants as we'd want if we would simply recruit in Europe. In fact, I'd wager we could decide we wanted only recently graduated university students under 25 with a comfortable knowledge of written and spoken English and still fill whatever quota we wanted. Many parts of Europe kind of suck these days, especially if you're young.

Not that Europe is the only source. I think I posted a cite recently that showed immigrants from the Philippines do so much better than from almost anywhere else outside Europe. The reason is a high degree of knowledge of English in the Philippines.

cybercoma · July 5, 2015

The prelingually profoundly deaf learn to pronounce through visual cues, meaning that the more phonetic the orthography is, the easier it is to learn to pronounce, and sinse the written language is a visual representation of the aural language, being able to do so accelerates literacy acquisition.

That's actually entirely wrong. Deaf people are perfectly capable of learning how to read and write in English, so long as they're not having their education undermined by being pulled out of classrooms and forced to learn how to enunciate words for the comfort of hearing people around them. Spoken language is not necessary for Deaf individuals and forcing them to learn how to speak is what sets them behind from actually learning valuable skills such as reading and writing.

Additionally, dyslexics benefit significantly from auditory cues in learning to read, something Deaf dyslexics can't do.

I didn't say anything about dyslexia, which is a separate issue from deafness altogether.

According to a 2005 OECD study, English orthography is the most difficult to learn t read and write among major European languages, around three times more difficult than the Finnish and Greek orthographies, with French orthography being the second most difficult.

And yet Deaf children are often raised in English-language schools, so this doesn't actually apply the same way as it would for someone of a foreign language who was raised and schooled in their native language.

While none of this guarantees Deaf illiteracy, it definitely reduces the odds of success at least somewhat.

Like I said in a previous paragraph, Deaf literacy has been profoundly affected by the lack of proper education and more importantly a history of residential schools that abused them and tried to strip them of their visual language skills early on. Deaf children who understand visual languages, namely ASL or LSQ in Canada, can learn English or French just fine in a mainstream classroom. The problem comes in when they're removed from the classroom and miss out on the same kind of instruction other students get because so-called educators are trying to teach someone who can't hear to use verbal language.

Second-class Canadian · July 5, 2015

I agree with much of what you said above, but one point:

The OECD report I was referring to was comparing not second-language speakers but rather native speakers each learning to read and write in their own language. British children catch up to their European counterparts at the age of twelve.

Canada_First · July 6, 2015

I work in the production of second-language instruction materials between three languages, so nowhere near any reserve. Also, since it involves second language educational materials, it would be useless to anyone who is illiterate in the mother tongue.

That said, had you been right, that would also have made me more knowledgeable about indigenous matters beyond statistics I'very read in books on the subject.

Though literacy is a matter I consider important, and I do in fact give to relevant charities, I also think the government wastes much money, considering spending on the separate school system and official bilingualism to be its most unfair subsidies that should be cut, especially if we're going to be under funding schools on reserves.

So you want to attack Catholics and the French at once? Good luck with that. I wish you well. These will never change, no matter what the left thinks about it. I know you lefties are constantly attacking Christians but I have no idea why you hate the french now too...

Canada_First · July 6, 2015

What does being Deaf have to do with anything? I have Deaf friends who have English degrees and have gone on to become teachers.

I agree with you. A close relative is deaf. I am fluent in ASL. Being deaf or HoH has nothing to do with this discussion.

Canada_First · July 6, 2015

That is the point, if everyone has a guaranteed income of 25k a year, there is then no excuse for people living under park benches.....hence those living under benches are there out of no fault other than their own.....at such a point, society can wash their hands of them.

But it would also give people every excuse not to work at all. 2 people together would have $50k a year free and clear. A lot would live the easy life and not work. This would lead to another Greece.

Canada_First · July 6, 2015

Exactly. Plus you wouldn't have homeless people begging you for money on the streets all the time. It's annoying.

I'm skeptical that the benefits would outweight the costs relative to other options. I'm open to the idea but it would have to be demonstrated to me that it makes sense relative to other options. A guaranteed income system is simpler and has less bureaucratic cost.

Also, I forgot one point:

5. Drug addicts may use their card to buy food and essentials and then trade them for drugs.

Okay, now which bureaucrat or politician is defining what is and what isn't a super market. Do we have to hire a bunch of supermarket inspectors to ensure that a place counts as a supermarket? Does this definition have loop holes that allow things that aren't really supermarkets to claim to be supermarkets?

Now what prevents a drug addict from giving an IOU to the mafia to give them this locked investment in 5 years for drugs?

Wouldn't change a thing. People would still be begging.

We dont need a massive big brother bureaucracy.

Plus street level addicts do not deal with OC at the highest level like you're suggesting. They buy their drugs from street level dealers who are often addicts themselves.

Second-class Canadian · July 6, 2015

So you want to attack Catholics and the French at once? Good luck with that. I wish you well. These will never change, no matter what the left thinks about it. I know you lefties are constantly attacking Christians but I have no idea why you hate the french now too...

I'm a French-speaker who was raised Catholic. I have nothing against French Catholics establishing their own schools where numbers warrant. I know Scott Reid (Conservative MP) had proposed a fair solution in his book 'Lament for a Notion.'

That however is different from a Constitutionally guaranteed privilege(sometimes at extra cost when numbers don't warrant it) to specific groups to the exclusion of others.

How is that anti-Christian?

Boges · July 6, 2015

We should implement the Discovery Reading Method.

cybercoma · July 6, 2015

I agree with you. A close relative is deaf. I am fluent in ASL. Being deaf or HoH has nothing to do with this discussion.

There's a lot of misunderstandings about Deaf culture and ASL for sure. I don't really blame people. Most have absolutely no interaction with the Deaf community, so there's a lot of misunderstanding. Even those who do interact with the Deaf community know very little about the history of residential schooling in many countries, but also here in Canada.

There's a great misconception that Deaf people are uneducated and suffering from learning difficulties or whatever. While sadly it's true that a lot of Deaf people are uneducated, the reasons for this are, imo, mostly related to the extremely deficient education that they receive growing up. Educators across this country to this day even spend more time teaching them to be accommodating to hearing communities than they do spending time teaching them a proper education with the assistance of interpreters. Deaf students should be given the same education as hearing students and have interpreters so they can receive it in their first language.

Most people don't realize how far behind public policy is as it relates to Deaf rights. In the UK British Sign Language is a recognized official language, which gives it certain protections. Neither Canada nor the US recognizes ASL (or LSQ in Québec as an official language). It wasn't even until 1997 in Eldridge v BC that it was recognized that access to interpreters is a human right, particularly in a medical setting. It was 2006 (less than 10 years ago!) in the Canadian Association of the Deaf et al v R that it was ruled federal offices must provide an interpreter for Deaf clients, yet how long have the had to offer services in French?

Anyway, yeah. Being Deaf is only tangentially related to literacy and the reason the Deaf community is falling behind is not because Deaf people have problems learning. It's because society has a problem recognizing that signed language is their first language and that learning aural languages does nothing to educate Deaf people, but rather is designed to accommodate the hearing community. If they spent an 1/8 of the effort accommodating the Deaf community by providing interpreters and allowing kids to learn the same things that their hearing peers learn, then Deaf students would be far better off. It's bad enough they have to face discrimination when looking for jobs. It's a god damned travesty that we sabotage their learning environments before they even get to that point.