Figure 2.2:

Distribution of proficiency levels (Document scale), by educational attainment, Canada,
population aged 16 and over, 2003

Source:International Adult Literacy and Skills Survey, 2003.

Skills upgrading

Even though workers with less than a high-school education are likely to have the greatest need to upgrade their skills, they are the least likely to participate in adult education.¹¹ The most recent Canadian data indicate that individuals with a university degree are five times more likely than individuals with a high-school education or less to participate in formal job-related adult learning (Myers and Myles, 2005). Peters (2004) uses both the 1998 and 2003 versions of the Adult Education and Training Survey to further investigate this training gap. She shows that adults with low levels of initial education are significantly less likely than their more educated counterparts to benefit from employer-supported training (Figure 2.3). She also shows that there was little change in the level of employer support between 1997 and 2002.

The 2003 AETS also aimed to gain a picture of participation in training over the longer term by asking questions about previous participation in past 5 years and the likelihood of future participation in the next three years. Peters (2004) defined long-term non-trainees as nonparticipants in job-related training in 2002, who also a) had no job-related training between January 1997 to December 2001; and b) stated that they were “not likely at all” to take training in the coming three years. Long-term trainees are defined as participants in 2002, who also a) took job-related training over the January 1997 to December 2001 period; and b) stated that they were “very likely” to take training in the coming three years. Peters found that the majority (56 percent) of long-term non-trainees had only a high-school diploma or less. In contrast, the vast majority (about 80 percent) of long-term trainees have completed some level of post-secondary education.

¹¹ Numerous studies have shown that the more education an individual has the more likely they are to participate in learning later in life (de Broucker, 1997; OECD, 1999; OECD, 2003a; Peters, 2004).