Systemic problems

The bureaucracy and the school system received some hard knocks. One person said, "You have to be a con artist to work the system." Others acknowledged that agency workers were often insensitive and put students under unnecessary pressure. Many felt that they were being pushed ahead too fast, because of the emphasis on employability. "Why, if we're working, and making progress, do we have to go through a hassle each time to be re-sponsored, when the time has run out?", queried one woman. Some of the older women wondered what was going wrong with the school system "that so many young people are in class?" The answer to that was given by one or two Grade 12 graduates who said they had been pushed through the system without being given the individual attention they needed.

Transportation and day-care

In the Victoria classes, questions of transportation did not arise. The campus is accessible by several different buses. In the Native program, however, one reason for its location was that transportation had been a problem for Native women wanting to enrol in BASD or ABE at the city campuses. Day-care was an issue as well. In the Malaspina program which drew on a fairly wide rural area, transportation and daycare were also issues for some of the participants. A participant in the READ program had to do extra travelling each day in order to drop off and pick up her child at a day care facility.

Next steps

The questions of where they were going and what they were going to do next came in for some discussion. A reiterated theme was to tie the literacy training to some kind of job skill training without high academic prerequisites. Another theme was the need for transitions or bridges between different programs and for adequate counselling and support throughout. Many felt that buddy-systems, mentoring, or peer help could all be used to advantage, if they could be recognized and established.

Many of the above items were also discussed in the one-on-one interviews with participants.