Upgrading programs

This document is the latest in a series of reports that examine the postsecondary outcomes of students who have moved on from upgrading programs to further education in Ontario’s college system. It is made up of charts and bar graphs that analyze and compare results for the past eight years.

In this brief video, a woman describes how after years of working at three jobs to support her family, she improved her literacy skills and realized her dream of opening her own business.

This report is made up of charts and bar graphs that illustrate the postsecondary outcomes of students who had moved from upgrading programs to further education in Ontario’s college system between 2003 and 2010.

It includes information on students’ choice of programs; numbers of students who switch programs; retention rates; and grade point average (GPA).

The READ Society’s Workplace Learning project, Phase 1, sought to explore and understand the issues that employers in British Columbia's Capital Region were having regarding hiring, retaining and promoting employees with lower literacy skills.

About 25 per cent of students in post-secondary Ontario college programs have delayed their entrance to college and have never participated in any form of post-secondary education. These delayed entrants take multiple pathways to college that include participating in courses or programs to upgrade their academic skills.

This is a report on research that has been conducted on the integration between college Academic Upgrading programs and Pre-Apprentice, Pre-Trades and Apprenticeship programming in Ontario. The research is part of a larger College Sector Committee (CSC) project entitled "Supporting Apprenticeship and Pre-Apprenticeship Programming through College Academic Upgrading Programs."

Successful Transitions to College Post-secondary and Apprenticeship Programs is a follow-up study to the 2007 report entitled Essential Skills for Success in College Post-secondary and Apprenticeship Programs.

In this report, the Conference Board of Canada (http://www.conferenceboard.ca) studies BHP Billiton Diamonds Inc, which operates the remote Ekati Diamond mine site in the NWT. The majority of the company's workers come from the Aboriginal communities in the region, a population with a strong oral, rather than written, culture. Workers often have little or negative experience with schooling, and, consequently, low literacy skills.

This resource is the Toronto Centre for Community Learning & Development's Yearbook for the Centre's 2008 graduation ceremony. The Yearbook reflects the theme for the 2008 graduation ceremony: "Strong Communities Together.” The book begins with messages from the Centre's president and executive director.

The Peterborough Native Learning Program, an adult literacy community-based program in Ontario, works with individuals who have their sights and hearts set on getting decent, meaningful jobs, providing training so that they are ready to write the grade 12 equivalency test or the last level of upgrading at the local college.