Page 988 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 19 March 1991
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involved the teaching of literacy and numeracy in three workplaces. The three sites selected were the Southern Cross Club, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission and the Patents Office. The pilots were designed, implemented and evaluated by the ACT Institute of TAFE. The employers provided paid leave for staff to participate. The programs had positive academic and attitudinal outcomes, including an increase in the confidence of participants to pursue further study. Further programs have been commissioned by other employers, particularly in the ACT Government Service. A more detailed evaluation of the basic workplace education pilot programs is contained in that ACT ILY progress report that I referred to earlier.
I want to talk briefly about literacy needs of ACT youth. The specific needs of youth in the ACT have been recognised as worthy of attention, and two areas of need have been identified, namely, the interface between secondary colleges and TAFE curricula; and the role of community based basic skills programs in youth centres. The motivation for this focus comes from the increasing demands being made on the education systems by increasing school retention rates, particularly in the ACT, the introduction of competency based vocational training, and the threat of increasing youth unemployment due to structural changes in industry.
In 1991 the ACT Ministry for Health, Education and the Arts and TAFE will explore ways of addressing these emerging needs. Resources committed to this project have been supplemented by a $12,500 grant from the Commonwealth Government. The Canberra youth groups network is also active in the area of youth literacy education. They are developing a joint pilot program which includes, amongst other things, computer aided literacy education. These programs allow disadvantaged early school leavers to acquire necessary living skills in an environment they find more acceptable. They highlight the importance of providing such education in both formal and informal environments, to more appropriately meet the needs of the learner.
Mr Wood: They split their infinitives in this, too; that is crook.
MR HUMPHRIES: I beg your pardon, Mr Speaker!
Ms Follett: He is the Minister for Education.
MR HUMPHRIES: I do not necessarily write these things, Ms Follett. "To meet more appropriately the needs of the learner" - I correct that statement for Hansard, Mr Speaker.
So, what was achieved - I think it is fair to ask - in International Literacy Year? Many initiatives were encouraged and resourced in 1990, including the establishment of new consultative arrangements. These
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