National Adult Literacy Database

In the coming months, the Government of Canada will take several steps to bring players together and stimulate innovative ideas for addressing social and economic challenges. The Government will look to leaders in the social finance sector, such as the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, the Centre for Impact Investing at MaRS, Vancouver City Savings Credit Union, Social Capital Partners, and others to help identify a way forward.

The following strategic orientations emerged at the summit as key to helping Canada regain its leading edge in a competitive economy: addressing development of literacy and essential skills as a national priority; raising the quality of practice; and integrating ES assessment and upskilling in college technical programs.

The Summer Aboriginal Literacy Camps are day camps that are run by Frontier College in Aboriginal communities across the country. The impetus for the camps, now in their seventh year, is to provide activities that are fun yet educational for Aboriginal children, ensuring that their reading levels remain the same or improve during the summer months.

The National Adult Literacy Database (NALD) will host a webinar on its digital library Wednesday, May 8, 2013, from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. Atlantic time.

There’s still time to participate in Canadian Literacy and Learning Network’s (CLLN’s) national survey of the Literacy and Essential Skills (L/ES) workforce. The survey is scheduled to end on April 30.

Continuous learning has a ripple effect, not only for learners but for teachers and the communities in which they reside. Each year at this time, the National Adult Literacy Database (NALD) joins literacy and essential skills organizations from across Canada to celebrate Adult Learners’ Week.

The survey provides LES workers with a unique opportunity to speak about their own experience and reality as a member of that workforce. It is part of a larger study that will allow CLLN to provide a picture of the demographics of Literacy and Essential Skills practitioners as well as what kinds of work they do, where they do it and how they do it.

Pat Salt, a learning support strategist based in Calgary, has a new approach to learning that constitutes a major shift in thinking when it comes to essential skills. She presented her views at Made in the North, a unique pan-territorial forum for exploring effective approaches to adult literacy and skills development.

As part of its ongoing skills initiative, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce has unveiled the findings of its Symposium on Skills and Small Business held in November. From the outset of the project, it has been clear Canada must upgrade the skills of its domestic workforce, including the essential skills that are critical for improved training outcomes and productivity growth.

The Prime Minister's Volunteer Awards were created for two main reasons: to recognize exceptional contributions that individual volunteers, not-for-profit organizations and local businesses make to improve the well-being of families and their communities; and to highlight the best practices in community leadership that these outstanding volunteers have developed.

Insights is an electronic newsletter that highlights important LES research findings for Canada. This issue focuses on employer supports and strategies for workplace LES training. It also includes information about the PIAAC survey for which data will be available in 2013.

The National Adult Literacy Database (NALD) is beginning a new year with an updated Vision, Mission and Values/Guiding Principles. NALD staff, under the direction of CEO Bill Stirling, started the renewal process with the NALD Board of Directors, including the CEO, adding the finishing touches and formalizing the new guidelines and the NALD Value Proposition at a recent board meeting.

The purpose of the State of the Literacy and Essential Skills Field report is to provide an overview of Literacy and Essential Skills across Canada from the unique perspective of CLLN and its national network partners, the provincial and territorial literacy coalitions. This is the first national environmental scan to be conducted by CLLN and as such it will inform the direction of future scans and will be the basis of further work to show how the Literacy and Essential Skills field is responding to trends.

In his new free workshop for 2013, Tom Sticht reviews extensive data on intergenerational inequalities in education and economics. He also presents data from many studies to suggest that greater investments in the education of undereducated youth and adults, many of whom are parents or will become parents, can help break the multiple life cycles of inequalities in education and economic achievement.