Literacy Basics - Community Literacy of Ontario

The IALS survey revealed that almost half of working-age Canadians function at levels 1 and 2. The other significant discovery was the large gap between Canadians with low and high literacy skills. The discrepancy pointed to issues of inequity, and raised concerns that Canadians were well behind many European countries in terms of overall literacy attainment.

In 1994, HRSDC launched the Essential Skills Research Project (ESRP) (www.hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/workplaceskills/essential_skills/esrp.shtml), and subsequently recognized the nine Essential Skills required to complete daily tasks. Using scales and terminology from a number of sources, including the IALS and the Canadian Language Benchmarks (www.language.ca/display_page.asp?page_id=1), the Essential Skills Profile template was created to show how the nine Essential Skills are used across a variety of occupations. The template also drew from The Conference Board of Canada's Employability Skills profile that identified “soft” skills workers need to function effectively on the job. Employability Skills 2000+ (www.conferenceboard.ca/
education/learning-tools/employability-skills.htm) provides examples that align with the Self-Management and Self-Direction domains acknowledged in the LBS framework. More basic ES representations fall under Thinking Skills, Working with Others, and Continuous Learning.

The ES template was used to gather and record the necessary information from a wide array of employees to create composite ES profiles for occupations that require post-secondary education or a high school diploma or less, as described in the National Occupational Classification (NOC) index (www5.hrsdc.gc.ca/NOC-CNP/app/index.aspx?lc=E). To date, more than 4,500 interviews have been conducted and approximately 250 ES profiles are posted on the ES website (www10.hrsdc.gc.ca/es/english/ES_Profiles.aspx).

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