Only seven projects explicitly involved Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition (PLAR). The projects typically involved PLAR as part of the apprenticeship process or as an individual assessment.

Of all the projects listed, few were aimed at specific target groups. Of those with identifiable target groups, projects that were directed towards Aboriginal people were the greatest in number. No projects were targeted towards persons with disabilities. Ten projects indicated that they had conducted an evaluation. In three cases, the evaluation was a participant satisfaction rating. One project tracked participant employment rates post-training, while the fifth project used performance indicators to track success.

d. Essential Skills addressed

We attempted to determine which of the nine Essential Skills were addressed in the project. As mentioned above, when we drew our information from the online survey, we entered exactly what the respondent had indicated. When our information came from an Internet search, we had to make decisions about how to categorize the skills involved. When a project was described as a ‘literacy’ project, we have listed the four literacy skills (reading text, numeracy, writing, and document use). Only when a specific single essential skill was mentioned, did we list that skill. For thinking skills, if there was no precision on which thinking skill was used or if the respondent indicated all Essential Skills, only the main category of ‘thinking skills’ was checked. If there was a specific mention of any of the five subsets of the thinking skills then these skills were indicated.