[2] Research on the literacy rates of Canadians in the colonial days rests largely on examination of the ratio of signatures to marks on parish acts (birth, baptismal, and marriage registrations).
"[4]: 1–2 However, censuses dating back to 1666 and official records from New France offer few clues of their own on the population's levels of literacy, therefore leaving few options in terms of materials from which to draw literary rate estimates.
[6] He believed that this upward trend in women's ability to sign documents was largely attributed to the greater number of female religious orders and to the proportionately more active role of women in health and education; male religious orders largely served as parish priests, missionaries, military chaplains, and explorers.
[7] The end of the Seven Years' War in 1763 allowed Québec City to acquire two Philadelphia printers and begin printing a bilingual Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph in 1764, and in 1785 Fleury Mesplet started publication of the Montreal Gazette, which is now[when?]
In response to the resulting recommendations, the Québec government revamped the school system in an attempt to enhance the francophone population's general educational level and produce a better-qualified labor force.
Catholic Church leadership was rejected in favor of government administration, and vastly increased budgets were given to school boards across the province.
Examination of 1976 census data found that among Canadians age 15 or over, 4,376,655, or 28.4%, reported a level of schooling of less than grade 9 and were thus deemed not functionally literate.
The survey found that 16% of Canadians had literacy skills too limited to deal with most of the printed material encountered in daily life, and 22% were considered "narrow readers".