In principle, learners should be able to enter the adult education system at any point, have their prior learning assessed and recognized, participate in the appropriate learning program(s), and proceed to the next step, whether employment or further education, in the shortest time possible (Wynne, 2005). This is not the current reality in any of the provinces studied. More work is required to create the kind of well-defined learner pathways that spell out the shortest and most effective routes to a wide range of economic, social and personal goals.

While ‘co-ordination’ and ‘coherence’ are essential concepts for an adult education system, an accountability framework would help getting them into the Canadian reality. The National Reporting System for Adult Education (NRS) in the United States looks like an interesting framework to consider in this respect.⁴⁵ The NRS is an outcome-based reporting system for the State-administered, federally-funded adult education programs. It establishes a national accountability system for these programs by identifying measures for national reporting and their definitions, establishing methods for data collection, developing software standards for reporting to the US Department of Education, and developing training materials and activities on NRS requirements and procedures. It has several features that are called for in this report: public accountability of the adult education program; a measure of its ability to meet policy and program goals; a collection of outcome data that enable authorities to correlate practices and programs with successful outcomes; and an assessment of progress in meeting adult education policy goals.

The Ontario adult learning system was likened to ‘an archipelago without a good ferry system’ in the mid-90s and it was still a relevant description of the situation when the Government of Ontario launched its Adult Education Review ten years later, in 2004. In light of our review of the situation in several other provinces, and our examination of the approach of the federal government and of employers to learning opportunities for less-educated/less-skilled adults, the same metaphor can be generalized to the system(s) in Canada at large. The metaphor may have originally been borrowed from a description of the inter-island transportation system in Hawaii, said to be “the only large archipelago without a ferry service”. Now the hopes are high: this situation is set to end with a regular daily ferry service between the islands starting operation in April 2007, with a substantial intervention from the US government. Will the metaphor end in such a positive way and a similar timeframe for the adult learning system in Canada as well? We have set out some principles and suggested next steps towards building the kind of coherent, connected system of adult learning that we need.