Understanding Low Literacy in Canada’s Indigenous Population
We know that Canada’s First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities have a far larger literacy gap emergent than we might find in the non-Indigenous population – but what can the stats tell us about literacy, learning, and working futures?
The Statistics
The statistics surrounding Indigenous community literacy in Canada can appear brutal:
· 45% of Indigenous adults do not have any educational qualifications
· 50% of Indigenous people leave secondary school, without any qualifications; a figure twice as high as the number of non-Indigenous people
· Around 50% of Indigenous people live on reserves, where there are 50% more high-school dropouts than off-reserve
· And in the last decade, 50% of Indigenous households were classed as having ‘serious’ literacy problems.
Source: Addressing the Literacy Issues of Canada’s Aboriginal Population: A Discussion Paper, Rongo H. Wetere Ph.D. ONZM (2016)
The narrative does seem to be changing, if glacially: among Indigenous youth aged 20-24 years, 70% had completed high school in 2016, up from 57% in 2006. Within this age group, the figure stands at 64% for First Nations people, 82.7% for Métis and 47% for Inuit. It’s a large step in the right direction, but a gap remains evident between these learners and non-Indigenous ones, whose figure comes in at just over 91% — and so far, we don’t have a lot of data that’s been collected since the pandemic, so it’s difficult to judge whether this trajectory has been impeded or continued.
Source: Indigenous Youth in Canada Study, (Portrait of Youth in Canada Data Report), Statistics Canada (2021)
Literacy and Work
Canada’s job market requires a high degree of literacy compared to many other countries: an extremely large degree of school leavers graduate with the required accolades and more than half of Canadian people have been to a college or a university. This means that there’s a high degree of literacy in the workforce and employers have come to expect it as a given — meaning that it’s difficult for people with low literacy to get a foot in the door in many cases.
As many as 140,000 Indigenous people live in remote locations with limited job prospects, with 100,000 of those having no links to an urban centre. Jobs in surrounding locations to these remote reserve communities can be difficult to come by, and often are manual or lower clerical in nature — the average income in 2016-17 for Indigenous people living on-reserve was $11,299, compared to the average of $25,995 for non-Indigenous people. The Winnipeg Street Census (2022) also reveals that a staggering 68% of people who were homeless in the city at the time of the survey were Indigenous people.
Source (unless stated): Addressing the Literacy Issues of Canada’s Aboriginal Population: A Discussion Paper, Rongo H. Wetere Ph.D. ONZM (2016)
Prison Populations and Indigenous Communities
There is a link between low literacy and becoming a part of the prison population: poor reading skills lead to a lack of educational and job opportunities, and a lack of these opportunities directs many individuals to roads that to end up within the justice system.
Many demographics that suffer from low literacy are over-represented within prisons, but the percentage of Indigenous people who are in federal institutions is larger than average and appears to be growing. Whilst prison populations are subject to a slow decline in general, the population of Indigenous men and women in prison has risen, and now around 32% of the prison population self-identify as Indigenous people.
Indigenous women are also the fastest-growing federally incarcerated population in Canada, with 20 out of 29 (69%) of them being born after 1990 — indicating a huge lack of opportunities for young Indigenous women, likely stemming from a lack of jobs and high literacy and qualification expectations from Canada’s employer base.
Source: Office of the Correctional Investigator Annual Report 2021 – 2022, Ivan Zinger J.D. Ph.D., (2022)
Digital Literacy
As well as reading skills, many Indigenous adults also appear to struggle with their digital literacy. The digital sphere provides a cornerstone of how we communicate in the modern age, and a technology skills gap here can often leave individuals feeling isolated, as well as impede their progress in acts like searching for and applying for jobs.
The USAY Indigenous Literacy Assessment (2022) found that only 64% of Indigenous foundational learners felt they could effectively communicate through social media, email and instant messaging, and 36% reported that they were unlikely to feel confident on a computer or other devices.
Why do Canada’s Indigenous Communities have such low Literacy Rates?
· Some learners in Indigenous communities do not have English as their dominant home language, which can make learning in English difficult if they’re not adequately supported
· Many indigenous learners are from low income backgrounds attend low income area schools, and sometimes struggle for materials (especially reading and reading support materials)
· Adult education levels are low, meaning parents are sometimes unable to help with school work; or learners grow up in a home environment that does not place developmental value on education
· Some Indigenous people are distrustful of the school system after the historic injustices committed against the former students of Canada’s residential schools, and seek to exit the school system as swiftly as possible
· There are relatively few Indigenous people in these communities, especially on reserve, who have degrees and provide good educational role models
· The job market for indigenous people may often feel limited in scope, especially in remote areas, with manual jobs forming the majority of paid labour opportunities — so any kind of higher education might feel useless when manual work appears the destination
Literacy is the means by which we access the curriculum: with poor English reading skills, all other subject skills suffer, and life chances can dwindle in their breadth and variety. The task ahead in Canada is a large one, especially as we recover from the effects of the pandemic, and reading support is a cornerstone of how we might tackle this dangerous literacy gap and improve outcomes for all.
You can find out more about the targeted reading support solutions for schools and for adults provided by Scanning Pens here.