Basic skills -- including literacy, numeracy, ESOL and digital skills -- are key to support adults' life chances and the need to invest in them is increasing. Investing in higher level and technical skills is important for economic recovery and future prosperity. But a sound base of basic skills are both essential in their own right and provide…

Canada's knowledge-based economy--especially the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)--continues to grow. Related changes in the economy, including shifts to globalized markets and an emphasis on innovation and technology, all mean that education is more and more an integral component of economic and social well-being.…

The training requirements of foreign-born workers may be different from those of native-born workers in similar jobs. Over recent decades Australian immigration policy has focused predominantly on accepting high-skilled migrants. Although this focus has resulted in the successful integration of foreign-born workers into the Australian labour…

"Research Messages 2008" is a collection of summaries of research projects published by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research in 2008, including conference papers and occasional papers. It also has an overview of the research highlights for the year. The summaries are clustered under five broad themes used by NCVER to…

"The Condition of Education 2018" is a congressionally mandated annual report summarizing the latest data on education in the United States. This report is designed to help policymakers and the public monitor educational progress. This report contains indicators on the state of education in the United States, from prekindergarten through…

According to interviews with 26 human resource managers, 78 supervisors, and 226 workers in New Zealand, managers and supervisors acknowledge significant changes in the literacy demands of work and concern with the capacity to train. Employees reported less difficulty with literacy tasks than supervisors/managers believed. Examination of workplace…

Data were obtained from the National Child Development Study (NCDS), a large-scale longitudinal study in the United Kingdom following up a sample of people born in a single week in 1958 through to adult life, to demonstrate that poor numeracy skills have a major impact. At age 37, a 10 percent sample of 1,714 cohort members were interviewed and…

A representative sample of 1,650 members of the 1970 British Cohort Study were surveyed at the age of 21 (in 1992) to gather information on their education, training, and employment experiences after the age of 16 and their self-assessed literacy and numeracy. Respondents also completed a half-hour assessment of their literacy and numeracy skills.…

A study examined unemployment among Australian young people between 1980-94, using data obtained from the four Youth in Transition cohorts born in 1961, 1965, 1970, and 1975. It investigated factors that influenced becoming unemployed and leaving unemployment. Findings indicated that low school achievement in literacy and numeracy was consistently…

The question of whether inequality in skills explains inequality of earnings across advanced countries was examined through a review of data from the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS), which examined the prose, document, and quantitative literacy skills of adults in 12 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and…

The impact of poor literacy and numeracy skills on employment and unemployment in Australia and elsewhere was examined through two case studies and a literature review. The first case study examined the role of literacy provision in helping 27 unemployed jobseekers find employment. The second focused on literacy and teamwork in the activities of…

The different perceptions of literacy that inform the work of various groups working with disadvantaged groups within society were explored in a case study in which individuals providing services to low-skilled, disadvantaged clients in an outer urban area of Brisbane, Australia, were interviewed regarding their perceptions of their clients'…

The relationship between literacy, numeracy, and employability was examined by analyzing data on basic skills that were collected in two of Great Britain's birth cohort studies--the National Child Development Study and the 1970 British Cohort Study. The functional literacy and numeracy skills of samples of 10% of the participants in each study…

The impacts and cost-effectiveness of adult basic education (ABE) in Sub-Saharan Africa were examined in a review of the new generation of ABE programs in the region. African experts and other international resource persons examined documentation from recent adult literacy, numeracy, and other educational programs targeted toward individuals over…

This document, which is directed primarily at groups working with people who are unemployed, partly employed, or out of the workforce, contains materials for a course titled "Changing Directions" that is designed to help people make sense of contemporary changes in society and work while considering various ways to channel their…