MLAs hear literacy concerns
Cariboo Press -- Castlegar News
October 11, 2006

EXCERPT

With the fall sitting of the provincial legislature cancelled, the select standing committee on education visited Castlegar on Thursday.

They were here to gather public input on how to improve adult literacy in the province.

A large contingent of local residents met with six MLAs at the Castlegar and District Public Library to voice their concerns and share strategies to combat illiteracy in the province.

"I suggest that if Premier Campbell actually wants to see B.C. become one of the most literate places on this planet, he will have no choice but to set aside long-term core funding to back up the rhetoric," Ann Godderis told the panel.

In 2005, Campbell announced he wants B.C. to be the best educated, most literate jurisdiction in the country by 2010.

"Who can take seriously the need to improve literacy levels if there's no long-term, multi-year, substantial budget from the provincial government?" she asked.

Godderis was speaking in support of the Columbia Basin Alliance for Literacy and the work the group does in the Kootenays and beyond....

She spoke about the tremendous difficulties the group faces having to rely on grants to survive and the hours that are wasted filling out grant applications rather than teaching.

"If something happens, the whole thing falls apart. We go into this on a wing and a prayer," said Wassing....

"We are hearing repeatedly about Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance barriers. There are child-care issues for single parents, " said Doug Routley, NDP MLA for Cowichan-Ladysmith on Vancouver Island. He pointed to Quebec and that province's universal child-care system as a model on which B.C. should build. Routley noted the high level of participation of women in the skilled trades in Quebec as proof that adult literacy depends on a number of social determinants.

"This [B.C. Liberal] government must face the fact it cut too deep. "We will pressure the committee to make real recommendations. The recommendations must reflect what we've really heard," he said. "This committee is about bringing meaning to words. It is a partisan environment, but we do share a commitment to literacy."....