United for Literacy (French: Littératie Ensemble) a Canadian literacy organization established in 1899 by Alfred Fitzpatrick. It was founded as the Reading Camp Association and was renamed Frontier College in 1919.^[1] In 2022, Frontier College changed its name to United for Literacy.

This article's factual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information. (October 2023)

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Frontier College

Founded	1899 in Ontario, Canada
Focus	Education, literacy
Headquarters	35 Jackes Avenue Toronto, Ontario
Area served	Canada
Website	www.unitedforliteracy.ca

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The organization's aim is to improve literacy levels in Canada by providing education to those who seek assistance with their learning and have been overlooked or left behind by the formal educational system. Frontier College runs a wide variety of English-language and French-language literacy programs for children, youth and adults in many places across Canada such as community centres, shelters, farms and prisons.

Since 1986, its national headquarters has been located at Gzowski House (named for the celebrated Canadian journalist, the late Peter Gzowski) at 35 Jackes Avenue in Toronto, Ontario. It has a strong, widespread presence in Ontario and Quebec, and maintains staff and regional offices in other parts of Canada. It also maintains a large volunteer tutor base utilizing programs located at many universities across Canada, which recruit university students to volunteer as tutors in its programs.^[2]

In 1899, the Canadian Shield in northern Ontario was dotted with isolated lumber camps that were cut off from larger society. Alfred Fitzpatrick, a 37-year-old Nova Scotian, who was then a young minister of a Presbyterian Church at Nairn Centre (located west of Sudbury, Ontario), saw that many of the young men - who were largely new immigrants - who worked at these camps were denied the benefits of culture, education and enlightenment. Influenced by the notions of the Social Gospel movement and the teachings of Professor George Grant at his alma mater (Queen's University), Fitzpatrick recognized that these men deserved "not charity but social justice.^[3]" His prescription was straightforward: after securing the goodwill of the lumber magnates, he would go about from lumber camp to lumber camp, and in each he would erect large tents called "Reading Tents." Each tent was then outfitted with books and stationed by Labourer-Teachers who were university students recruited to volunteer at the tents to teach the workers to read and write. Outside each tent was a sign that said "Reading Tent. All Welcome." Thus, the Reading Tent Association was born. It was later renamed Frontier College.

Over the years, with the changing face of Canada and the nature of its society and industries, Frontier College too adapted its programs in order to meet the learning needs of Canadians everywhere. In 1932, Frontier College began serving in British Columbia 'relief camps'. The range of its programs grew from serving labourers in isolated logging and mining camps or rail gangs to assisting all constituents of Canadian society from adults working in factories and workshops to children from low-income families needing help with their homework, street-involved youth determined to overcome their circumstances, and Aboriginal learners and communities. In 2022, Frontier College changed its name to United for Literacy.

On 24 September 1999 Canada Post issued a stamp,'Frontier College, 1899–1999, Education for all,' based on a design by Renata Chubb, Glenda Rissman, and Peter D.K. Scott, based on an illustration by Alain Massicotte. The 46¢ stamps are perforated 13 x 13.5 and were printed by Canadian Bank Note Company, Limited.^[4]

True to its founding belief in universal rights to learning and education, United for Literacy adheres to the principle of S.C.I.L. or Student-Centred Individualized Learning (also known as Student-centred learning) in organizing its tutoring programs.^[5] This approach places the student or learner at the centre of the relationship where the learner, instead of the tutor/teacher, determines the goals or objectives that are to be achieved. In turn, the challenge is for the tutor/teacher to locate, organize or create and present learning material that is relevant to the student's/learner's goals, interests and experience. This relationship helps ensure that both learner and tutor are responsible partners in the learning-tutoring process.

• The Companion of Frontier College honours the contributions of an individual.
• The Fitzpatrick Award, which honours the contribution to the cause of literacy by a group, organization, corporation, agency or family was named after the founder, Alfred Fitzpatrick.

• The Honourable John Hamm, the Premier of Nova Scotia, moved the adoption of the following resolution:^[11]

"Whereas in 1899 Pictou County native, Alfred Fitzpatrick, overcame discouragement from government and business to establish the Canadian Reading Camps Association; and
Whereas under Alfred Fitzpatrick's leadership, this organization grew into what is today known as Frontier College, Canada's oldest adult education institution;
and Whereas in its century of operation, Frontier College has helped educate countless thousands of Canadians in railway camps, lumber woods, city streets and Aboriginal communities;
Therefore be it resolved that members of this House recognize the contribution made to education and adult literacy by Alfred Fitzpatrick - one of the great Canadians born and raised in Nova Scotia."

• UNESCO recognized the Frontier College's work internationally by awarding it the 1977 Literacy Prize (also known as The Mohammad Reza Pahlavi Prize) for its "meritorious work in the field of adult education."^[12]

• Heritage Minutes, which notes an episode on the Frontier College