While literacy education may be considered an "employability enhancement measure" under the new legislation, it generally is considered a long-term investment and permission is granted on a case-by-case basis. According to several directors and spokespeople for Employment and Income Assistance (EIA), the trend is to support short-term employability training as opposed to longer-term education:

At present most clients have a 44 week window through the "Employment First" (welfare-to-work) legislation to move clients into employment. Very much the mandate is employment, not education. . . We are expected to get you into a program that will lead to employment. If you don't cooperate with that, you'll lose your benefits. (EIA Director)

Effect of ‘Welfare-to-Work’ on Students

The recent changes to welfare have had a significant effect on Manitoba's adult literacy population. Students in the LWW Study spoke of having to "jump through endless hoops" in order to convince case workers of their need for educational up-grading. Others expressed constant worries about being cut off if they didn't do well, or if their worker felt they were taking too long. A number of respondents described difficulties juggling school with welfare- to-work expectations. All felt that the rules imposed by the welfare system were both punitive and highly discretionary.

The only way I can really explain the welfare system is like being in jail. You're thrown out of jail on your ears and you're stuck with this responsibility with nowhere to go. The only way to explain the system is that you're stuck in one position and you can't move.

I asked (my worker) if I could go to school full time but he turned me down . . . I started crying and he gave me a Kleenex and he said, "Why are you crying? Don't you think you can do it?" And I looked at him and said, "No, I'm crying because I can do it. Because all my life I've been trying – going to city welfare, seeing my vocational worker. . . and all of you say no. I know I can do it and can do better than waitress all my life but I need your support." And it worked out. He said, "OK, you can go." I was so happy and thanked him for believing in me.

Provincial (welfare) didn't even want me to go to school at all . . . They look at us and go, "He can work." We look big and strong, but they don't want to know us on the inside. And that's where we are really hurting the most is on the inside. And you have to put up with a lot of crap just to stay in school and it hasn't been fun.

I don't know what it would be like to be on welfare and try to go to school nowadays. I did it one time on City welfare. I did try to go to school and they said either you go to school or work. I said I would go to school. They said, "If you go to school, you can't get welfare." There's always a catch. I said, "How am I supposed to live?" They said, "Look for a job and work part time and go to school part time." I wanted to go to school full time. And my welfare officer was not very nice. He would say, "Whose fault was that?" Like going to school was my fault. And he would put me down, saying: "I'm not the stupid Indian that dropped out of school."