Foundation Skills for the Future

Kathryn Shugg Branch Manager Foundation Skills Branch

ACAL Conference September 2011

Today’s presentation

!!Setting the scene – LLN facts and challenges

!!National Foundation Skills Strategy for Adults

!!What happening now !! Foundation Skills Programs !! Strategic Initiatives

Complementary Agendas

Social Inclusion

Productivity Agenda

Participation Agenda

Closing the Gap

The Challenges How do we manage our future growth?

How do we provide opportunities for all Australians?

How do we fulfil the Australian social contract by ensuring the next resources boom brings a dividend for the many not just the few?

The essence of our response to these challenges is the need for Australians to be educated and skilled. Senator the Hon Christopher Evans, Minister for Tertiary

Education, Skills, Jobs & Workplace Relations 21 September 2011, National Press Club

2006 ALLS Survey Showed that approximately 48.7% of adult Australians had inadequate LLN skills to cope with the demands of every day life

This includes: !! 40% of existing workers !! 60% of job seekers !! 70% of those not in the labour force

Working-age Australians by labour force status

6,850,860 4,567,240 (40%)

ALLS Level 3 and above^

ALLS Level 1 and 2^ Employed (11,418,100)!

Unemployed (618,800)!

247,520 371,280 (60%)

Not in the Labour Force (3,976,210)¥

1,322,885 2,653,325 (67%)

! Trend series data from ABS 2010, 6202.0 Labour Force Australia, December 2010), (pg. 1).

¥ Data taken from ABS 2009, 6220.0 Persons not in the Labour Force. Summary Results, September 2009 (pg. 10).

^ The ALLS levels here are extrapolated from ABS 2006, 4228.0 Australian Literacy and Life Skills Survey, Summary Results (pg. 38) which shows that approximately 40% of the employed, approximately 60% of the unemployed and approximately 67% of people not in the labour force had document literacy scores below Level 3.

Legend

= 100,000 people

What difference does it make? Improving literacy and numeracy skills from Level 1 to Level 3 would: !! increase the likelihood of labour force participation

by about 15 percentage points for women and about 5 percentage points for men, and

!! increase hourly wage rates by about 25% for women and 30% for men.

(from Productivity Commission research, 2010)

The National Foundation Skills Strategy

!!Announced in 2010

!!Being developed collaboratively by all governments

!!Part of the participation and productivity agendas

!!Will set the direction for government approaches to lifting the level of adult foundation skills over the next decade

Foundation Skills Working Group

Formal Consultations

First Draft

Critical Friends

Approvals processes to MCTEE

Strategy - The Process

Emerging themes

Developing the Strategy

FSWG needed to deal with issues around:

!! Definition of Foundation Skills

!! Targeting the Strategy

!! Scope of the Strategy

!! Program reform and systemic reform

!!Measuring progress

Building Australia’s Future Workforce

Skills component: a $3 billion investment over six years to deliver the skilled workers the economy needs. Four components:

!! a new partnership with industry

!! skills to promote increased participation

!!Apprenticeship reform

!! reform of the National VET System

Building Australia’s Future Workforce Foundation Skills !!Language, Literacy & Numeracy Program ($143.1 million over four years) !!Australian Apprenticeships Access Program ($19.7 million over four years) !!Workplace English Language & Literacy ($20 million over four years)

Supporting Foundation Skills !! Strengthening frameworks

o! ACSF o! Employability Skills and Attributes Framework

!! Embedding LLN in VET o! Foundation Skills Training Package o! Mapping of Training Packages

!!Research

!!International Year of Reading www.love2read.org.au

Workforce development initiatives

•! LLN Practitioner Scholarships

•! New Qualifications for adult LLN teachers

•! New skills sets: •! Volunteer Tutors in Adult LLN and •! Community Service Workers

•! Professional Development

Thank you.