National Adult Literacy Database

The Helmets to Hardhats Canada website is dedicated to helping veterans and men and women in uniform find jobs in the building and construction industry as they transition to civilian life. The site was launched by Steven Blaney, Minister of Veterans Affairs, and Brigadier-General (Retired) Gregory Matte, Executive Director of Helmets to Hardhats Canada.

An initiative of the Canadian Society for Training and Development (CSTD), Learn@Work Week is an annual celebration recognizing the value of workplace learning and development in Canada. Workplace learning has a positive impact on employee performance and productivity, and is crucial to a healthy Canadian economy.

"It’s not that we don’t have skilled workers; it’s that we don’t have the workers with the right blend of skills required in the 21st-century labour market of a globally connected economy."

High jobless levels aren’t just trouble for the unemployed and their families, but also the tax bases of countries, exacerbating the trouble climbing out and making deficit-trimming all the more difficult. It’s going to take a lot to fix it, including retraining.

Ofsted’s recent reports Moving English Forward (published in March 2012) and Removing barriers to literacy (January 2011) highlight that too many children and young people are falling behind at the beginning of education and lack the practical skills to successfully make their way in the adult world.

"Literacy is a ladder out of poverty, but the real issue is poverty. Some of our former learners said it seemed as if they were caught in a never-ending cycle. You need school to get a job, but some people can’t afford to come to school. They’re hungry, they can’t concentrate or they have an upset stomach. It’s basically do or die. It’s like you’re thrown into a well with no rope to pull you up."

In celebration of International Literacy Day 2012, Global Literacy Professional Development Network (www.glpdn.net) and IRA’s Global Operations Unit released A Practical Guide to Action Research for Literacy Educators.

Decoda Literacy Solutions is proud to announce the launch of the Adult Literacy Database. This database will capture data about adult literacy programs in British Columbia, and will fulfill a longstanding need for a simple and effective program management tool for adult literacy programs.

“Ministers of education are pleased to add their voice to the global call for greater literacy for all peoples,” said Ramona Jennex, Chair of CMEC and Minister of Education for Nova Scotia. “We recognize that literacy is one of the pillars of an open and democratic, economically strong, and socially inclusive society.”

Jessica Hjarrand is a UNESCO literacy specialist who works to implement literacy programs that help children and adults enjoy the basic human right of learning how to read and write. This is her story.

Skills Link is a client-centred program that provides funding for employers and organizations to offer eligible activities to youth facing barriers to employment. The Government of Canada is presently accepting applications for funding from organizations interested in acting as community coordinators and receiving financial assistance for the delivery of Skills Link activities.

In British Columbia, the importance of literacy as a foundational skill is recognized year-round through the efforts of literacy programs for people of all ages in communities all across the province. On September 8, Decoda Literacy Solutions would like to acknowledge the tremendous value that these programs bring to British Columbia.

According to the latest data from Statistics Canada, the unemployment rate for people age 15 to 24 is 14.3 per cent, almost double the 7.3 per cent for the nation as a whole. But management and human resources experts say there's hope — and offered these five tips to help grads find work.

Job seekers face a multitude of perplexing questions. To make matters more confusing, there are often no clear-cut answers and much depends on situational factors. Unless you happen to know someone in human resources with whom you can address these uncertainties, it can be very stressful go it alone.

Under the existing Youth Employment Strategy, this new $50-million initiative will be dedicated to projects that will connect approximately 3,000 young Canadians with private sector jobs in fields that are in high demand, such as the skilled trades and tourism. The projects will help employers fill labour shortages while providing youth with the on-the-job experience they need to transition into a career.