The Essential Skills

Essential Skills are the skills people need for work, learning and life. They provide the foundation for learning all other skills and are the cornerstone of lifelong learning. Through extensive research, the Government of Canada has identified and validated the following nine Essential Skills. These skills are used in virtually all occupations and throughout daily life in different forms and at different levels of complexity.

Reading Text

Reading Text

Reading materials in the form of sentences or paragraphs such as notes, letters, memos, manuals, specifications, books, reports and journals.
Document Use

Document Use

Reading different types of material such as labels, signs, lists, tables, graphs, forms, diagrams, blueprints and other similar materials.
Writing

Writing

The preparation of written materials for a variety of purposes. Completing such tasks as filling in forms, writing text and using computers to write.
Numeracy

Numeracy

The ability to understand and use numbers and think in quantitative terms. Using numbers to perform calculating and estimating tasks such as handling cash, budgeting, measuring and analyzing. Numeracy has five sub-categories:

  • Money Math
  • Scheduling or budgeting and accounting math
  • Measurement and calculation math
  • Data analysis math
  • Numerical estimation