StatsCan collects data on literacy in Nunavut

PATRICIA D’SOUZA

Researchers from Statistics Canada are travelling across the territory, interviewing Nunavummiut for an international study on literacy.

They’re trying to find out how Nunavut residents use words, numbers and problem-solving skills at home and at work, or, according to a Statistics Canada report, “[use] printed and written information to function in society, to achieve one’s goal, and to develop one’s knowledge and potential.”

The data will eventually become part of the International Adult Literacy and Skills Survey, a scientific partnership between Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States.

Statistics Canada will release specific Canadian data in about a year, said Martine Lamontagne, assistant director of survey operations for the Quebec region, which includes Nunavut.

The data will be compared with data from other countries, and with data collected in 1989 and 1994, the last time the survey was conducted.

Researchers have been travelling through Nunavut conducting face-to-face interviews since early May and will continue their work until the end of the month.

They are randomly selecting households from the most recent census, and administering a series of tests to one adult in the household.

The person must answer a series of background questions, explaining, for example, their level of education, languages spoken, literacy and numeracy practices at work and communication technology literacy.

Then the person will be asked to complete six “core tasks,” the fundamental elements of the study.

Finally, the person will be given a booklet with questions related to one of the general areas of the study. There are 28 booklets in all, related to subjects such as arithmetic, literacy or vocabulary. The person will be given one randomly chosen booklet out of the 28.

More than 1,200 households in Nunavut will be selected for the study. About 42,000 will be chosen across Canada.

The data will be used primarily by national organizations such as Human Resources Development Canada, the national literacy secretariat and Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Lamontagne said.

Canadian Heritage is interested in monitoring the differences between linguistic minorities and the majority population in several regions, she added.