2008

The authors of this document note that while many working-age Canadians have inadequate literacy skills, the situation is even more urgent among Aboriginal Canadians.

This presentation, designed for a workshop on oral communication, provides an overview of the subject as both a skill in itself and as one of the nine Essential Skills.

It includes lists of factors that can help or hinder communication; reasons for studying communication; pointers about culture and communication; and diagrams illustrating the complexity of group communication.

This document offers an analysis of the status of prior learning assessment and recognition (PLAR) across Canada. As well, it includes suggestions about what is needed in order for employers, post-secondary institutions, and government to recognize and value experiential and informal learning.

In May 2008, the Canadian Council on Learning (CCL) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) co-sponsored a symposium on knowledge mobilization with the goal of stimulating discussion about a variety of questions related to that concept.

The voluntary guidelines contained in this document provide common protocols to support the planning, development, implementation, and maintenance of national occupational standards and personnel certification programs, and the accreditation of educational or training courses and programs. The rationale for using common protocols is to maximize efficiency, minimize cost, and optimize the benefits of a harmonized system.

The authors note that improvements in post-secondary educational attainment are an important response to the growing demand for skills in the Canadian labour market. However, in addition to academic skills, employers require their employees to have occupational skills, including both job-specific technical skills and “soft skills” like interpersonal communication and teamwork.

This document is a presentation that gives literacy practitioners an introduction to the Bridging the Employment Gap program developed by the Simcoe/Muskoka Literacy Network (SMLN) in Ontario.

This report, presented during the annual conference of the Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education (CASAE) in Vancouver in 2008, outlines a case study of an Aboriginal adult literacy centre. The study was framed by the concepts of guided participation and cognitive apprenticeship, which involve learning through guidance from an expert.

In this two-minute video, seven young people talk about their feelings about money and finances.

The young people come from a variety of backgrounds, from small towns and from big cities, from middle-class homes and from social housing projects. Some of the subjects simply spend whatever money they have, while others are saving for the future.

This video, about two and a half minutes long, features a youth counsellor explaining how financial literacy can help young people improve their chances of finding work and achieving their dreams.