Categories: Essential skills, Learning
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.
Posted: March 26, 2013 |

Category: Essential skills
Mentoring is an effective program to help newcomers find jobs that match their skills and talent. It is built on a simple foundation: connecting an internationally trained professional with their Canadian counterpart. But what is the impact?
Posted: March 26, 2013 |

Category: Essential skills
Among the most-discussed measures in the recent federal budget was the government’s plan to create a new “Canada Job Grant.” Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Ottawa will contribute up to $5,000 per employee — if the employer and the province both provide matching funding — for short-term skills upgrading in places like community colleges and union training centres.
Posted: March 21, 2013 |

Category: Essential skills
Human resources directors at leading U.S. companies told a 2004 survey that up to a third of their employees could not write properly. But can HR directors write? -- Aïda Alaka, a U.S. law professor, wrote in a 2010 article in the Journal of Legal Education: “Many of my brightest students have, by their own admission, no grasp of the rules governing writing.”
Posted: March 19, 2013 |

Categories: Essential skills, Learning
If you're aware of an exemplary or innovative technology product, project or service that benefits the field of adult literacy and essential skills in Canada, the National Adult Literacy Database (NALD) would like to hear about it.
Posted: March 15, 2013 |

Category: Essential skills
Running a business or working from home offers many distractions, potentially leaving the home office cluttered. Here are a few of the most important areas and ways to organize.
Posted: March 15, 2013 |

Categories: Essential skills, Learning
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.
Posted: March 11, 2013 |

Category: Essential skills
As conversations about social finance and social innovation in areas of adult learning are proliferating across provinces and countries, a new paper offers some analysis and insights on possible applications to the fields of LES.
Posted: March 7, 2013 |

Category: Essential skills
Internal auditors looking to gain a professional edge will want to sharpen a number of non-technical skills, according to a new white paper just released by Robert Half and The Institute of Internal Auditors. The paper outlines the qualities that have emerged as essential for practitioners in a constantly shifting business environment.
Posted: March 6, 2013 |

Categories: Essential skills, Labour market, Learning
Each month NALD releases Library user statistics in a feature known as the Top 20 downloads/20 Plus téléchargés. The report examines the number of NALD Library documents, in both English and French, which are viewed and downloaded by visitors to the websites NALD and BDAA.
Posted: March 5, 2013 |

Category: Essential skills
In developing nations, with prohibited freedom, lower literacy rates, and lack of technological knowledge, many women are missing out on the Internet. While both genders tend to have more limited Internet connectivity than those in the west, there are still some very surprising discrepancies in how much more often men are able to access the web.
Posted: March 5, 2013 |

Category: Essential skills
Look at any community college application list, and more often than not, you’ll find a sizable contingent of university graduates. The thought that a university degree is the ticket to instant career success is creating a backlash in Canada.
Posted: March 5, 2013 |

Category: Essential skills
The new Ontario government has created a new Northern cabinet committee that will address the complex needs of Northern Ontario, including job creation, revitalizing transportation infrastructure and improving vital access to the Ring of Fire. Premier Wynne and her team are also looking at ways to improve access to health care and education in the region.
Posted: March 5, 2013 |

Category: Essential skills
As of June 1, employment assistance services for EI-eligible clients in Newfoundland and Labrador currently run by most third-party service providers will be delivered through the Department of Advanced Education and Skills. This change in service delivery will mean a re-investment of approximately $14 million annually for programs and services to help people secure long-term employment.
Posted: March 1, 2013 |

Category: Essential skills
Defined in the simplest terms, a spelling bee is a competition in which individuals are asked how to spell a variety of words. Yet to the people who organized and participated in a recent event at Blossom Park Educational Centre in Woodstock, Ontario, it was considerably more.
Posted: March 1, 2013 |

Category: Essential skills
Canadians with disabilities have a tremendous amount to offer employers, but they remain under‑represented in the workforce. That is why the Government of Canada, through Economic Action Plan 2012, is investing an additional $30 million in the Opportunities Fund to help more people with disabilities gain the hands-on experience they need to find jobs.
Posted: March 1, 2013 |

Category: Essential skills
Diane Finley, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development, spoke at the Canada 2020 Conference on Skilled Trades in the Energy Sector, stressing the country’s skills and labour shortages and the need for increased partnership to tackle this joint challenge.
Posted: March 1, 2013 |

Category: Essential skills
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.