I'm Charles Ramsey, executive director of the National Adult Literacy Database, which is based in Fredericton, New Brunswick. It is one of the seven national literacy organizations in the country funded by Human Resources and Social Development Canada.
We'd like to thank the committee for accommodating this request to make a presentation. We're extremely pleased to be here. We submitted a written brief earlier on, on the issue of workplace literacy.
Our purpose in this presentation to the standing committee is to emphasize the need for federal government investment and leadership in both workforce and workplace literacy for adult Canadians. The importance of literacy in all aspects of the lives of Canadians has been well established.
From the various international literacy surveys, including the recent international adult literacy and life skills survey, we know that 42% of working-age Canadians have serious literacy challenges. We also know that 54% of adults with literacy challenges are employed. However, we know that only 2.2% of the dollars that employers spend on training go to literacy. These figures show the serious effect not only on Canada's prosperity, but on the prosperity of adult Canadians and their ability to participate in a democratic society.
The importance of a solution to address the literacy issue with leadership and investment by the federal government has been well documented. The first example of this documentation is the 2003 report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, a copy of which I have here. In there, it was clearly and well documented. In fact, I think the title of the report, “Raising Adult Literacy Skills: The need for a pan-Canadian response”, says it all. A second important example is the cross-country round tables conducted with stakeholders on literacy and essential skills by the federal government in 2005. Investing in adults with literacy challenges is also an investment in their children, as a measure to prevent the cycle of low literacy from repeating itself in future generations.
In our own work at the National Adult Literacy Database—or NALD, as we call ourselves—we see the thirst for, and extent for, the need for literacy resources and supports across the country. NALD is an online library that provides information on adult literacy programs, resources, services, and activities to anyone, anywhere, any time, at no cost to the user, and in both French and English.
The numbers show the breadth and depth of our service and our reach. I'd like to illustrate with some figures. In the year 1997-98, there were 172,000 user visits to our website. By March 2006—that is, in the year 2005-06—this number had increased to more than nine million user sessions in the 12-month period, or 25,000 user sessions a day. Similarly, just six years ago, the number of downloaded documents from our libraries totalled 36,000. In 2005-06 more than 4.4 million documents were downloaded in PDF format from our library.
These examples are sufficient to provide an indication of the magnitude of the need out there. I hope they also illustrate that we're not broadcasting out into a void where there's nobody home. People are actually downloading and using these resources that have been created by Canadians, for Canadians, in a Canadian context.
I want to acknowledge that the federal government has recognized the important work of NALD. Recently, HRSDC announced support of $1.6 million over three years, to enable NALD to develop and implement a workplace literacy and essential skills clearing house and portal. This will allow us to provide a bilingual, single-source, comprehensive, up-to-date, and easily accessible database of workplace literacy and essential skills programs, resources, services, and activities to those involved and connected to the workplace and workplace literacy field.
My colleague Sue Folinsbee will provide you with further information.