This document, which is intended for adult educators and others interested in developing and delivering a workplace education program, provides an overview of workplace education. First, workplace education programs are defined as programs in which adult learners are taught basic skills by using the functional context of their jobs and a…

A description is provided of the Lower Merrimack Valley Workplace Education Project (WEP), an educational project that offers English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) and job-specific education classes to hourly employees in the Semiconductor Division of Alpha Industries. The challenge of the project was to create a WEP that could accommodate the…

The research on workplace literacy programs during the past two decades has revealed a great deal about the requisites for successful workplace literacy programs. The following have been identified as characteristics of effective workplace literacy programs: active involvement by all project partners; employee involvement in the early stages of…

If Australia's adult educators involved in adult literacy, language, and numeracy provision are to initiate significant changes in the inequalities existing in Australian society, they must examine a range of issues extending far beyond classroom walls. Much discussion about workplace communication in recent years has evolved from the growing…

A study examined basic skills programs at 21 Illinois companies. Most of the top managers interviewed recognized the basic skills training needs of their work forces; however, only 14 of the companies actually offered workplace basic skills programs. Three major motivating factors were identified as catalysts for beginning a program: a drive for…

Although the National Workplace Literacy Program is relatively new, a new orthodoxy of program development based on particular understandings of literacy and learning has emerged. Descriptions of two model workplace education programs are the beginning points for an examination of the assumptions contained in most reports of workplace education…

Possessing generic or employability skills is vital in the current labour market. The vocational education and training (VET) sector, like other education sectors, must ensure its clients gain and develop generic skills. This volume of readings summarises NCVER managed research into generic skills undertaken in 2001 and 2002. The work covers four…

This publication is part of the study materials for the distance education course, Language and Literacies: Contexts and Challenges in the Workplace, in the Open Campus Program at Deakin University. The document traces the historical development of Australia's Workplace Basic Education Project (WBEP) model for taking literacy provision into the…

Project TIME (Training Initiative for Manufacturing Employees) was an 18-month National Workplace Literacy Program conducted by Lord Fairfax Community College in conjunction with an automotive parts plant and Triplett Technical and Business Institute in Virginia. Project TIME had three primary objectives: to help employees obtain the basic…

The College of Lake County's 3-year National Workplace Literacy Program (1994-1997) contributed to economic development by meeting companies' changing educational and production needs as they fluctuated and met new challenges for global marketing and improvement. It assessed 883 employees at 8 business sites with customized assessment tools and…

This document presents the text of a roundtable discussion on the topic of best practice in workplace literacy in which six individuals representing the following agencies/organizations participated: Ontario (Canada) Ministry of Education; City of York Board of Education; an employer in Markham, Ontario; a community literacy group in Ontario's…

This training manual deals with developing and implementing work force education (workplace literacy) programs. It consists of three sections and an appendix. Discussed in the first section are the scope and purpose of work force education, work force education participants, types of basic skills problems and solutions, and the need for…

The New Horizons project was a workplace literacy partnership during which 454 employees (53%) of Georgetown Steel attended classes provided by Horry-Georgetown Technical College in Conway, South Carolina. Of the 454 participants, 294 were white, 159 were black, 71 were female, 383 were male, 133 had been with the company for 5 years or less, and…

This document includes a final performance report and evaluation report from the Weck Ed program, through which job-linked adult basic education and General Educational Development (GED) test preparation courses that were jointly developed by the company Pilling Weck and Durham Technical Community College were offered to Pilling Weck employees on…

This document consists of the final report and sample curricula from the Rural Textile Workers Literacy Enhancement Project. The final report details how the project was initiated in April 1993 to help employees of five textile and apparel manufacturing companies in southeastern Alabama improve their literacy and numeracy skills. A second…