The courses, entitled IT and English and Communication Skills at Work last for six hours a week over a five weeks period and are designed for a range of “front-line” staff including cleaners, care-takers and refuse collectors. Funded by the Learning and Skills Council (via the local colleges) and facilitated by the local authority’s release of employees during working hours, the courses aim to give the learners a chance to “brush up” or improve their literacy skills with the chance to take national tests at Level 1 or 2. In terms of the promotion of the courses, Penny Robinson, Learning Centre Manager, met individuals in small groups and also discussed the courses at staff meetings. Micky Neale, a ULR who was instrumental in the setting up of the courses stressed the importance of retaining confidentiality around the learners’ progress on the course; all learners cover the same programme but at different levels and line managers are not informed of the literacy levels of their staff. The tutor described the importance of addressing a lack of confidence amongst learners and of trying to challenge the tendency to associate learning with school:
“I think I’ve lost track of the number of people that come in to that course and they’ll pull you to one side and they’ll say look I was never very good at spelling, er… I wasn’t very good at school and you have to say to them look that’s not what its about, its about … whatever you want to do in this classroom, whatever you feel your needs are we can address them here so don’t, its not a case of testing you. You’ve got this three hours for the next you know 10 weeks to develop.”
The tutor feels that the courses have been effective in addressing many of these fears and negative associations:
“…I feel quite happy that we’ve gone along with it because I’ve had so many say to me I didn’t want to come here. I was thinking this was going to be like going back to school, and then they said you know, a lot of them at the end said I’ve really enjoyed it, thanks you know, because they’re not expecting that kind of relaxed, you know treated as an adult, you know do it at your own pace…”
This case study focuses on caretakers and cleaners who undertook a Communications Course, involving literacy and ICT for three hours a week over a five week period from January 2004 onwards. An increase in report writing in order to document damage, accidents and instances of vandalism formed the underlying rationale for the involvement of these caretakers in the course. In the words of the Learning Centre Manager:
“We’ve just run a course for caretakers now in theory they virtually tick boxes that should be the job, but they’re finding that they’re having to write a little bit more information on forms, and I think that does worry some of them because they all say well my spellings terrible, my handwriting is terrible so they are aware that perhaps they’re having to… write more and they’re being, and their handwriting and their spelling is being noticed more than perhaps it was five years ago…”