Thank you very much.
I am very much aware of the issue with respect to literacy and colleges. CPRN recently hosted a national round table on quality in post-secondary education. We had several university presidents and presidents of colleges participate, about 40 people altogether.
Clearly the place that adult learners are most often attracted to, certainly the kind of adult learners that we're talking about in terms of these vulnerable workers, is the community college. That is often the place where basic adult education is offered as a place for them to go.
Again, though, the issue with respect to literacy and access to these literacy training programs is complicated by the fact that there is no one-stop shop, and for the most part, with respect to access, the websites that are there are very difficult to read. Imagine if you're a person who has a low level of literacy and your only access point is an Internet site that you can't read. It doesn't do much to help.
What we are seeing that is very beneficial is a kind of hotline approach, with trained counsellors on the other end who understand the specific needs of these adult learners, because of course, that's going to be the easiest way for them to access our system and make a big difference.
So with respect to raising the level of literacy in Canada, when we're talking about nine million working-age Canadians without basic levels of literacy, as an issue of productivity it is very important for us to invest in assuring that this population in particular is lifted up. It's a staggering figure, and we are far below OECD countries in terms of our investment in our adult learners.
One of the things that we think is important as we talk about these kinds of incentives is to really create a culture of a right to learn and an expectation in our society that we will continue to learn, and that adults too have a right to learn. So those are things that we can look at and put in place as part of our contribution to building literacy in our country, because building literacy builds productivity. It's a simple equation.