literacy in the news

Carol Goar is writing about literacy this week.

Monday: Put education focus on ABC not PhD

Wednesday: Literacy network struggles to survive

One way to let the Star, other media outlets and perhaps election campaigners know that it is important to keep shining a light on the issue is to comment on this story.

Link up and leave a comment.

Here is what I said:
Put education focus on ABC not PhD
Great article Carol. It is not just that public funders do not allocate funds to literacy, part of the problem is that when they do, they require that those funds be used for programs that act as as a prescription to heal economic woes instead of a resource to foster creativity, intellectual development and excellence in individuals and communities. In Ontario funding for adult literacy comes through Employment Ontario and federally it is tied to Essential Skills. Locating literacy as an employment skill only is reductive, short-sighted and does a great disservice to our students, to our communities and to our culture.

Literacy network struggles to survive
Thanks for shining a light on this issue Carol. The Ontario Literacy Coalition published a response to the federal budget that includes data on the lapsed funds for literacy - the Office of Literacy and Essential Skills has been unable to spend even the reduced amounts allocated on literacy research and development (more on this here: http://literaciescafe.blogspot.com/2009/02/lapsed.html) That coupled with the fact that funders are supporting less research and more tool creation means that Canada is no longer supporting innovation in the field. 5 of the links on this UK research page (http://www.literacy.lancs.ac.uk/rapal/researchinprog.htm) are projects by Canadian researchers. We cannot continue this internationally recognized, essential research without publicly funded support.