While TASC acknowledges the importance of promoting equal access to training and employment opportunities, there is no specific reference on the organization’s website to the learning needs of educationally disadvantaged workers.⁴⁰

HRSDC has put together a detailed framework to evaluate the Sector Council program that includes a large number of performance indicators. Unfortunately, though, none of the indicators address the impact of sector councils from a worker’s perspective. In particular, the evaluation framework does not require that Sector Councils provide information on how many workers with a given educational background have benefited from any of the training structures and programs, or the extent to which employers and councils face specific challenges to entice less-educated workers to upgrade their skills. For this reason it is difficult to gauge the impact of Sector Councils on less-educated workers.

Analysis of the data that we do have suggests that the impact of the Sector Councils on the least educated has been limited. A comparison of data from the 1997 and 2002 versions of the Adult Education and Training Survey (AETS) shows that participation in employer-supported training did not increase in a significant way in five years. According to the recent Conference Board of Canada report Learning and Development Outlook 2005, the lion’s share of workplace training still targets well-educated employees. Basic skill training remains at the bottom of training priorities comprising only 2.2 percent of training investments (Parker and Cooney 2005).

6.5 Workplace literacy: Barriers and innovative practices

Over the last decade, starting essentially with the release of the first results of the International Adult Literacy Survey in 1995, the Conference Board of Canada developed an extensive research agenda on the impact of literacy in the workplace. Using a variety of research methodologies from survey data analysis to case studies and surveys of employers, this research:

• assessed the literacy skill gap in the working age population,
• made the business case for enhancing basic skills in the workplace,
• looked at the factors associated with low literacy and participation in training,
• identified the barriers to training on both the employee and employer sides,
• developed strategies to overcome these barriers adapted to different types of businesses and make workplace literacy programs effective tools to enhance quality and efficiency of business operations and improve employees’ comfort with basic skills.

⁴⁰ http://www.councils.org/1approach/response_e.cfm (last accessed March 26, 2006).