Patterns of Participation in Canadian Literacy and Upgrading Programs: Results of a National Follow-Up Study.

In early 1999, ABC Canada and Literacy British Columbia (BC) worked with 55 literacy organizations across Canada to study student recruitment and retention. Telephone interviews were conducted with 338 people who had contacted programs seeking literacy information or services (callers). Findings indicated callers constituted a broad cross-section of people, from all age groups, from large and small communities, with a very wide range of formal education and employment status; callers heard about programs and how to contact them through media advertising and posters, telephone book, community groups, agencies, schools, and word-of-mouth; callers were seeking help with reading and writing, getting a high school diploma or credits, math alone or as a component with reading and writing, employability skills, or English as a second language; more callers were interested in improving literacy skills for personal, social, and general educational reasons than for job or retraining purposes; less than half of callers enrolled in a program; program/policy-related factors were the main reasons driving non-enrollment for the most callers; socioeconomic-circumstantial factors were the main reason reported by more than half of dropouts; and of those who had completed or were still in a program, 88 percent reported high levels of satisfaction with program level, content, and teaching structure. National Follow-Up Survey is appended. (Contains 48 figures, 42 references, and an index.) (YLB)