The LBS Program provides literacy, numeracy and Essential Skills training to help individuals in Ontario achieve their goals. LBS provides a continuum of services to Grade 12 equivalency and ensures a choice of delivery options though colleges, school boards and community-based agencies. LBS is further committed to serving four streams of learners in Ontario: Anglophone, Francophone, Native and Deaf. New initiatives, which generally lead or accompany change, must take into account this multi-faceted and complex system, although this is not always easy to do.
The LSA initiative was funded by TCU in January 2007 to develop a framework for measuring learner skill attainment in three key areas of Essential Skills: Reading Text, Document Use and Numeracy. The framework would accommodate learners with diverse language and cultural needs, different goal destinations, and a wide range of skills and skills levels. The framework would reflect the learner-centred, goal-directed, outcomebased nature of LBS while balancing the need for valid, reliable and practical assessment practices.
The resulting framework would enable LBS and Academic Upgrading (AU) programs in Ontario to track learners’ progress towards identified goals on a consistent scale in meaningful increments that relate to those goals. The framework would enable programs to more accurately demonstrate learner skill attainment and contribute to program effectiveness.
The need for an assessment framework had been established by a prior research project (Vubiz, Ltd., 2006) based on consultations with the field. The project concluded that a more transparent and consistent assessment approach was needed as LBS moves towards a broader, integrated system of employment and training services (Employment Ontario) governed by a more formal program quality assurance and accountability model (CIPMS).
In 2004, the Government of Ontario began a fundamental transformation of how TCU delivers training and employment programs in the province. The government is committed to developing a strong workforce in Ontario to ensure a competitive advantage in the knowledge economy. It will accomplish this through Employment Ontario, a comprehensive, integrated employment and training system.
Launched in January 2007, Employment Ontario was made possible by the signing of two important labour market agreements between the Ontario government and the federal government. They are the Canada-Ontario Labour Market Development Agreement