These are interesting observations, Susan.  It fits with what I have
heard about work preparation in Europe, too, that employers assume more
of the responsibility for seeing that their workers receive the training
they need to do their jobs.  It seems that employers in the United
States expect that potential hires will already have mastered all the
skills they need for the job that are not particular to that particular
job.  Am I getting this right, those of you with more actual experience
with US and European employers?  And I sometimes get the feeling, too,
that we in the US think that lack of basic skills in the workplace is
uniquely a US problem.  Obviously, this isn't so!  It would be
interesting to get more of an international picture here.  Please post
if you can expand our awareness.
 
Donna
 
Donna Brian, Moderator
Workplace Literacy Discussion List
djgbrian at utk.edu

________________________________

From: workplace-bounces at nifl.gov [mailto:workplace-bounces at nifl.gov] On
Behalf Of Susan Reid
Sent: Monday, April 02, 2007 9:47 PM
To: The Workplace Literacy Discussion List; The Workplace Literacy
Discussion List
Subject: [Workplace 651] Re: Please share COABE experiences


Hi Donna 
I really enjoyed my time at COABE and meeting you again and others
involved in workforce but in particular workplace literacy 
 
The  thing that really struck me in terms of differences between New
Zealand and the US was that practitioners said to me they were moving
into workplace literacy and needed to get materials ready to show
employers. In New Zealand we focus on understanding the employers'
issues and their business as a way to make the case for a workplace
literacy programme - it is really unusual that we would show our
materials to employers.
 
The other difference that struck me was that most of the provision in
New Zealand takes place onsite in work time and this did not seem  to be
the case in the US - instead employees seemed to attend classes outside
work and not at their work site. I would be interested in comments if
this is in fact the case and how this impacts on provision. 
We find that at work on site provision means that it is very very rare
for someone to drop out of a programme 
Thanks again to all the people who I met who were really generous with
their time and information 
 
Kind regards Susan 
Susan Reid 
Manager Learning and Development 
Workbase the NZ Centre for Workforce Literacy 
www.workbase.org.nz
 

________________________________

From: workplace-bounces at nifl.gov on behalf of Brian, Dr Donna J G
Sent: Tue 3/04/2007 6:27 a.m.
To: The Workplace Literacy Discussion List
Subject: [Workplace 650] Please share COABE experiences



Colleagues,

Now that we are getting back to our regular routines and
responsibilities, I would like to encourage those of you who were able
to attend COABE to share what was most meaningful to you.  What were the
issues raised?  What resources were most important?  What would you like
to bring to the discussion list for further discussion?

Also, if you presented a session and your handouts are in digital form,
could you send those to the list along with any of your comments?

One last way to share:  If you noticed an announcement of a session (see
Workplace post # 635 in the archives at
http://www.nifl.gov/pipermail/workplace/2007/date.html for a list of the
workplace sessions) that you were particularly interested in but were
unable to attend either because you did not get to go to COABE or
because the session time conflicted with another session you attended,
let me know which session it was, and I will try to contact the
presenter for his/her notes or handouts.

Donna

Donna Brian, Moderator
Workplace Literacy Discussion List
djgbrian at utk.edu
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