Why Clear Language?

By Anette Chawla, Executive Director

THE MOST RECENT STATISTICS CANADA SURVEY was released in May 2005. A key finding was that there are almost as many people affected by literacy challenges now as when the last survey was done in 1994.

Yet, the information Management System tells us that, of the approximately 1.6 million Ontarians with literacy challenges, only about 46,000 adults attended LBS or OBS classes last year. Obviously, our literacy classes only reach a fraction of those who might benefit from them. Of course, this speaks to the fact that more attention should be given to improving our programs’ abilities to serve learners by increasing funding and resources, and by complementing this increase with targeted public outreach. However, we all know that not everyone will come to a literacy program, no matter what we do. This may be because of their age or because they, for now, have found other ways of coping. The fact that they are not attending programs evidently does not change the underlying literacy and numeracy challenges that they might meet in their daily lives when dealing with information about government services, about their health and well being, or when participating in our democracy.

We need to find alternative ways of ensuring that all adults can live full lives at home, at work, and in the community. In future, the OLC would like to look at how to ensure that people can find and use the information and services that they need, whether that be in print or in other forms.

The OLC has long encouraged governments to start to work broadly across all their departments to integrate literacy with other social issues. An excellent first step towards such a goal would be to mandate the use of plain language by all government institutions.

As with many of you, the OLC has dedicated itself to using clear language throughout our organization—although we sometimes struggle with making this come true in our daily work! Some years ago, we adopted a clear language policy. As part of our efforts in this area, we now try to use a 13 point font, Times New Roman, in the body of most of our work and we make our documents easier to read by including plenty of white space. We often ask our Adult Learners Network of Ontario to review what we do. Our ability to seek their advice is invaluable.

In this newsletter, we turn the spotlight on plain language. We have collected a range of articles that highlight activities and approaches that are currently happening around our province and beyond.

Enjoy!