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Making learning work

Karen Myers, University of TorontoOctober 19th 2006

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Adult learning systems

Innovation

IntegrationCoordination Accessibility

FlexibilityPartnership

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Outline

1. The economic case

2. Gaps and new directions

3. Making change

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• Lifelong learning is the exemplar par excellence of the “rich getting richer”.

• Individuals with a university degree are five times more likely than individuals with a high school diploma or less to participate in formal job related learning.

• Return on investment in skills upgrading of less educated workers is 3xs as great. (Coulombe and Tremblay 2001)

The participation gap

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• 3.7 million Canadians aged 25-64 do not have a high school diploma or higher credentials.

• 9 million Canadians aged 16-65 have literacy skills below the level considered as necessary to live and work in today’s society.

• The less-educated experience lower wages, more unemployment, lower-status jobs, fewer learning opportunities.

A statistical portrait

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Mr. Baird’s false dichotomy

“If we're spending $20-million and we have one out of seven folks that are functionally illiterate, we've got to fix the ground floor problem and not be trying to do repair work after the fact”.

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Does “repair work” work?

Findings about the efficacy of US government sponsored training should not be generalized to claims about the efficacy of other forms of training

Government sponsored

training

Employer led training

Formal education

Community based

training

=

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The Canadian evidence

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Men Women

• Zhang and Palameta (2006) found that less educated adult learners actually had larger earnings gains than more educated workers.

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Why so few?

• Only a small fraction participate

• Most provinces have launched initiatives but systems remain complex, fragmented, and maze-like.

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Five core gaps

• Coordination• Information

• Financial aid • Employer support

• Government investment

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New Jersey Online Project

• Paid attention to needs of learners

• Flexibility with lots of support

• Wage increases of 14% (vs. 3% for non-participants)

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Workforce Intermediarie

s• Dual customer:

connecting supply and demand• Focus on

advancement• Increased wages

• WRTP includes 56 firms, 60,000

workers, 42 unions

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Building ladders and pathways

• Career ladder: map of the range of jobs and linked training opportunities within a sector.

• Career pathway: set of connected courses which allow students to combine school and work and advance to better jobs and higher levels of training

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San Francisco City College

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• What intrigued you about these initiatives?• What are you skeptical about?• What would you like to know more about?

Discussion

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Performance regimes

• Employment regimes focus on their own survival.

• Performance regimes are enmeshed in a civic context of relationships, networks, and leadership that drives towards concrete results

Clarence Stone (1998:17).

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Dialogic capacity

The ability to use member knowledge and problem solving skills to develop solutions that are both

technically workable and politically feasible.

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• What intrigues you about these concepts?• Do they have resonance for you?• What would you add?

Discussion

• Performance regimes are enmeshed in context of relationships, networks, and leadership that drives towards concrete results

• Dialogic capacity - The ability to use member knowledge and problem solving skills to develop technically workable and politically feasible solutions

• Does dialogic capacity exist? How it can be built?

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An opportunity?

Danger or peril

Pivotal point or opportunity

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Conclusion“We must be the change we want to see in the world.”

Mohandas K. Gandhi