Clearly, the largest number and percentage of projects occurred at the provincial or territorial level. This makes sense in terms of the provincial/territorial responsibility for training, apprenticeship, and delivery of workplace education programs. Local projects and regional (sub-provincial) projects were less common, and there were two interprovincial projects (two or more provinces).

c. Type of project, starting dates, PLAR and evaluation

Our data collection also was aimed at the type of project, the starting dates and end dates of each project, whether the project explicitly involved PLAR and whether there had been an evaluation.

We attempted to classify the projects by type, and did not limit this to only one answer. About half of the projects dealt with curriculum development, while another third provided in-class training, needs assessment, and research. These leading categories reflect the nature of available funding, although we did find more in-class training than we had expected. This might be due to respondents counting pilot testing curriculum and tools as training.

Because there is little in the area of tool development, it might be an activity to target in the future. Another weak area was provider training, although there might be more projects happening that either provide practitioner training on all Essential Skills or are woven into literacy practitioner training programs.