In 2014, the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) thrust adult educators into a dramatically new landscape of service expectations and partnership requirements to increase the ability of providers to meet the employment needs of students and employers. The coronavirus pandemic created an accelerating demand for adult education…

When the pandemic began, Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA) providers worried about equity gaps in digital access for low-level and English language learners. Working with AEFLA programs, Tyson Foods implemented low-cost solutions to facilitate digital and remote access in its workplace literacy classes hosted in plants across the…

Australia appears to be in the grip of a "literacy crisis" in workplaces. Media reports and industry/skills organisations are decrying the low literacy and numeracy levels of workers and the negative effects these have on productivity. As a consequence, the Australian government has increased funding for workplace literacy and numeracy…

From 1989 until 1998 the U.S. Department of Education administered the National Workplace Literacy Demonstration Program. During that period, over $130 million supported some 300 projects where adult education programs partnered with thousands of businesses, agencies, and organizations to provide work-based skills to employees. While only seven…

The Attleboro (Massachusetts) Workplace Education Program, a partnership of four area companies and Bristol Community College, is intended to provide workers with education that will improve the quality of their lives and their work. Housed in a corporate office building in the Attleboro Industrial Park, the program offers classes in English as a…

"Schools and Businesses Need to Work together to Close the 'Job Skills Gap'" (Cortina) discusses Los Angeles efforts to implement recommendations of the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills. "Employer-Sponsored Education Is a Win-Win Situation for Both Businesses and Employees" (Lipshutz) describes a…

Discusses roles for labor unions in resolving workforce deficiencies, suggesting that labor, management, and government must work together to develop cooperative training initiatives. Describes labor's historic role in basic and workplace literacy training, lists skills workers need in the "new" workplace, describes exemplary union-management…

A literacy/basic skills training project, revised to allow for the realities of the economic recession in New England, successfully trained 590 employees and 364 unemployed men and women. Revised positive outcomes included employment in companies outside the eight original companies in the project, enrollment in higher-level education and skills…

Presented in case study format, this report looks at different types of workplace literacy programs across Canada. It describes in some detail 10 particular work environments and the unique characteristics that have enabled each to offer quality worker education programs. Each case study provides information in these categories: profile (an…

This document contains a final report, evaluation, and curriculum materials from a project conducted at the RJR Nabisco plant in Indianapolis to upgrade the literacy and numeracy skills of the workers to facilitate technological changes to production lines. As the final report explains, although the goal of the project was to recruit and test 150…

A minicourse pilot project was designed by the Massachusetts Department of Education to meet the staff training and development needs of workplace educators in the National Workplace Literacy Program. During the course, various activities and group configurations were used to help teachers apply modeled approaches to their own teaching contexts,…

Profound changes in the structure of the workplace and in the nature of jobs now make reading, writing, and other communications skills vital to the performance of even entry-level jobs. However, massive numbers of present and future workers have only minimal or marginal proficiency in the basic skills. The problem will get worse as the labor pool…

The aim of the Basic Skills at Work Program was to help improve the competence of the work force in England and Wales in basic literacy, numeracy, and communication skills. Of the 82 Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs) in England and Wales, 73 participated. Surveys of basic skills requirements as perceived by local employers indicated that…

The Champaign County (Ohio) Board of Education asked four companies to participate in a workplace literacy project: Hall Company, Grimes Aerospace, LewiSystems, and Comdyne. Companies supplied training facilities and paid release time for employee participants. Seventeen classes were completed; 13 were attended by recruited participants, 4 by…

Mount Wachusett Community College's (MWCC's) Workplace Partnership Project (WPP) was undertaken to raise the awareness of local agencies to the linkage possibilities among MWCC, economic development leaders, and literacy programs; and to develop a tutor training program for rural workforce literacy tutors. Brochures and flyers publicizing the…