Making learning work

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Making learning work

• Karen Myers, University of Toronto
• October 19th 2006

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Adult learning systems
Integration
Coordination
Accessibility
Innovation
Flexibility
Partnership
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Outline

1. The economic case
2. Gaps and new directions
3. Making change

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The participation gap

• 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)

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A statistical portrait

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

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Mr. Bairds 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?
Formal education
Government sponsored training

Employer led training
Community based training

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

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The Canadian evidence

• 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 Intermediaries

• 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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Discussion

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

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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
  resultsClarence Stone (199817).

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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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• 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?

Discussion

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

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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