National literacy award winners - ACAL · expand the use of IT to support literacy and numeracy development, to train local communi-ty members to teach other communities and to

New office bearers were elected at theACAL Annual General Meeting (AGM),held during the national adult literacy

conference in September. They are PaulineO'Maley and Jan Hagston, who jointly hold theposition of President, Robyn Jay, Secretary,and Lorraine Sushames, Treasurer.

We would also like to welcome new state repre-sentatives (see ACAL contact details on page16) and to express our appreciation of the workdone by those who retired at the AGM or duringthe year: Suzanne Bozorth-Baines (Treasurer),Geraldine Castelton (Past President), PatHazell (NSW), Lois McManus (WA), SheilaO'Leary-Woodhouse (Tas) and Ann Brown (SA).

Particular thanks go to Jim Thompson, the out-going ACAL President, whose leadership andexpertise significantly contributed to the devel-opment of ACAL's strategic approach to adultliteracy.

The next 12 months will continue to be chal-lenging for ACAL and we look forward to further developing the strategic work that has beenundertaken over the past year.

literacy link

December 2004

NEWSLETTER OF THE AUSTRALIAN COUNCIL FOR ADULT LITERACY ISSN 0158-3026 Vol 24 No 6

A C A L

Blogs and blackboards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3Building skills for Indigenous

governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5Literacy Link—invitation to contributors . .6Birmingham’s aspiration to become

a learning city . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7North bound train—WELL

training that works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9A fair go—factors impacting on vocational

education and training participation in ethnic communities . . . . . . . . . . . .11

Adult literacy in call centre and aged careindustries: two dimensional work . . .13

One size does not fit all . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15Adult literacy councils—contact details . .16

National literacy award winners

c o n t e n t s —

Pauline O'Maley(left) and JanHagston (right)recently electedACAL Co-Presidents

New faces at ACAL

Five exceptional individuals were honouredrecently at the 2004 Minister's Awards forOutstanding Contribution to Improving

Literacy and/or Numeracy. Each of them hasmade a major contribution to the developmentof literacy in their community. They will eachreceive $10,000 to further their work.

These awards, now in their second year, areopen to people working in a wide variety of lit-eracy and numeracy forums from earlychildhood through to schools and adult educa-tion. They are an integral part of NationalLiteracy and Numeracy Week (NLNW) which isheld in September.

The five winners are: Ms Yvonne Clarke, MrAlistair McIntosh, Ms Anja Tait, Ms Margaret

McCallum and Ms Jenness Warin. The last twonamed worked with adults and are of particularinterest to Literacy Link.

Ms Margaret McCallum joined the Committeeof Bright Adult Education Inc. in 1996. In herrole as Voluntary Literacy Coordinator MsMcCallum saw how difficult it was for people inisolated rural communities to access the litera-cy services they needed. Through herleadership and commitment the 'Words onWheels' (WOW) project was developed—a two-year pilot providing a mobile tutoring service torural communities. This program continues todeliver a range of literacy programs throughoutthe Alpine Shire in Victoria. In 2003 the successof the Words on Wheels project was recognised

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2 Literacy Link December 2004

There were 277 registrations for the con-ference held in Melbourne 10—11September. Just over half were

Victorians but all States, and even NewZealand, were represented. The conferencewebsite had over 6,000 visitors, who made10,286 visits with around two-thirds of registra-tions making their initial registration online. Theconference 'call for papers' and registrationforms were available on the Internet and in printform, and were circulated widely and in a timelymanner. The design elements were carried overinto the program, the website and correspon-dence and people commented on the 'FourSeasons Tree' in the foyer.

The NCVER and DEST forum preceding theconference proved to be a good 'warm up' andFriday's program picked up on some of thethemes that emerged. The keynote speakersset the scene each day and the performance onSaturday brought energy and laughter. We feltthat the Focus sessions enabled people to

engage with some of the broader issues as wellas with research and projects. The Networksessions were partially successful in that wehad an LLNP network spontaneously form in thefoyer and each of the scheduled network meet-ings was quite well attended. The time wasprobably not adequate and this aspect of theconference program could be further devel-oped. It is such a good opportunity to find outwhat is happening around Australia in particularareas and to raise issues for ACAL.

The Melbourne Museum was a delightful venuefor the conference dinner and we thank them fortheir co-operation. The Arch Nelson addresswas presented with panache and peopleenjoyed the opportunity to engage in the trivialpursuit questions.

The CD of conference papers included in the'green bag' meant that people could take withthem most of the material presented at the con-ference. Additional material wil l becomeavailable on the website on October 1st, notonly saving trees but ensuring availability forthose who missed out on attending.

Thank you to all those who attended and to pre-senters who gave their time. Thanks to DonMacDowall for his attention to detail andpatience. Thanks, too, to the conference plan-ning committee, the ACAL executive and theVALBEC committee who all worked to con-tribute to the success of the conference andwho sang so beautifully (but should not give uptheir day jobs!)

Lynne Matheson 2004 Conference Convenor

through the award of the Victorian AdultCommunity and Further Education's MostOutstanding Program Award.

Ms McCallum was nominated by Mrs LindaMeighan, Coordinator of Bright Adult EducationInc. Ms McCallum will use the award money toexpand the Words on Wheels program.

Ms Jenness Warin has worked as theWorkplace English Language and LiteracyTutor for the Laynhapuy Homeland AssociationInc. in the NT for the past four years. She hastaken an innovative approach to teaching litera-cy and numeracy in the remote Homelands ofEast Arnhemland. She travels to theHomelands and teaches literacy in a small-business context, providing programs whichaddress the real needs of the community.Elders are enlisted to mentor younger people,

an approach which respects the tribal structureas well as meeting the challenges of the newgenerations. Ms Warin helped win a grant forbroadband satellite-equipped communicationsstations that are now set up and operating infour remote Homelands. As a result of her workmany Indigenous people are now able toaccess services and participate in the broadercommunity in ways which had not previouslybeen open to them.

Ms Warin was nominated by Jonetani Rika,Homelands Development Coordinator and col-league. She will use the award money toexpand the use of IT to support literacy andnumeracy development, to train local communi-ty members to teach other communities and toresearch the uptake and effects of digital com-munication in relation to improvements in adultliteracy and numeracy in remote communities.

ACAL Conference 2004—report

Jim Thompson (ACAL Immediate Past President), Lynne Matheson(VALBEC President), Dr Ursula Howard (UK—keynote speaker) andRosie Wickert (ACAL executive co-opted member) at the recentNational Adult Literacy Conference.

Blogs and blackboards

Literacy Link (ISSN 0158-3026) isthe newsletter of the AustralianCouncil for Adult Literacy, a volun-tary organisation set up in 1976 tosupport the development of adult literacy, numeracy and basic education in Australia.

ACAL promotes co-operation amonginterested organisations andindividuals, both government andnon-government, by undertaking andencouraging appropriate study,research and action.

Literacy Link is distributed FREE—to obtain your copy contact ACAL.Back issues are available from theACAL web site— www.acal.edu.au

Contributions to Literacy Linkshould be sent by email to: [email protected]

Editorial Committee:Stephen Ward (editor), RosemaryWood, Robyn Jay, WendyStothers, Margaret McHugh, production by David Dickson, copy editing by Heather Haughton.

Correspondence for ACAL includingmembership should be addressed to:

ACAL, PO Box 850Reservoir VIC 3073phone: 03 9469 2950 fax: 03 9442 4508email: [email protected]

DisclaimerMaterial inserted with Literacy Linkshould not be viewed as being inany way endorsed by the AustralianCouncil for Adult Literacy.

Our joint research examines the develop-ment and negotiation of discourse in twodifferent online learning environments.

One, using a group ‘blog’ as a discussion boardand chat room, was created to encourage adultNon-English Speaking Background (NESB)learners to continue the classroom dialogueoutside the classroom; the other, using themore structured format of Blackboard, was themain classroom and meeting place for a post-graduate course for teachers and trainers.

‘Hi, everybody! It’s so nice to push away thewalls of our classroom! Do you feel yourself inthe universe?’ Student comments like this onebring life to the whole experience of onlinelearning, and validate educators’ attempts tointroduce it into the classroom.

We all know that the number of people who usethe internet both at work and in their studieshas increased rapidly. In Australia, there istherefore a very real need for teachers todevelop online teaching skills, and to learn howto blend these with their face-to-face teaching.Britton (1970) pointed out that language learn-ing is most successful when it is a form of play.Adult learners find it difficult to play—they areafraid of looking awkward. The two discussionboards which provided the basis for this studyoffered contrasting opportunities for ‘play.’

Each discussion board formed part of a whole,far larger curriculum, and the focus of eachprogram was obviously very different. In TALONthe online discussion formed just one aspect of

an entire online course which was designed forteachers and trainers who had some experiencein writing traditional learning materials and wereexperienced computer users, and who wantedto examine the issues involved in putting learn-ing materials on the Web. Because the coursewas conducted wholly online, the discussionforum was the main ‘meeting place’ for partici-pants—and, although serious concerns wereraised here, it was also possible to enjoy chal-lenging different viewpoints in a context thatwas by definition informal.

The web log discussion board was used with aclass of Language Frameworks students, and

by Jane Westworth and Elizabeth McKenzie

Literacy Link October 2004 3

continued over

This article outlines a presentation made at the 2004 National Adult Literacy Conference. The presenters, fromthe Learning Skills Unit at RMIT University, have a special interest in extending the face-to-face teaching of thephysical classroom into the online environment, and in challenging the boundaries of traditional classrooms andtheir discourses. The complete presentation is available at www.valbec.org.au/acalconf/presentations.html

Blackboard—an online classroom technology whichenables the teacher to design an e-learning course withWeb pages and discussion areas. It is a closed learningenvironment that can be accessed by any Web browserand participants have their own password for secureaccess. A free trial can be downloaded from: www.black-board.com

Blog—short for ‘web log’— a log or journal on the web.Most blogs now are made on free sites such aswww.blogger.comwhere it takes about ten minutes to getyour own website launched. You receive an internetaddress (referred to as a URL) for your site. You can thenaccess your site from any computer, anywhere in theworld. Blogging is fast; it’s fun. It’s a ‘no frills’ way tointroduce technology into the reading and writing class-room.


was originally intended to give students ameaningful way of understanding computer literacy and using the Internet. This particulargroup of students was diverse in terms of lan-guage acquisition, age, educationalbackground, perceived ability, and academicand social acculturation. They came to the blogwith no expectations other than that it must befun, and in that spirit they began experimentingwith different language forms immediately.

With TALON, it soon became obvious that themost successful discussions were those with aparticular focus and which were related tocourse assessment. A guest speaker wasinvited into the classroom as moderator to leada discussion over a limited time of one week.The students responded to the immediacy ofthe task. For preparation the participants wereasked to find online courses that they felt weregood examples of online learning and bringthem to the discussion. The time frame createdan additional novelty since the guest speakerwas writing from England; participants awokeeach day to his new messages—

Hi everyone. It’s the end of my working day,Tuesday 4:20 pm. I figure if I post a messagenow, I will get the first word. So here goes.

I should say that, although I am suggestingsome areas to think about below, I don’t wantto limit the agenda in any way. Feel free toraise what you want to raise. But please takepity on me. These ‘guest speaker’ gigs aredifficult for the guest. There are many of youand just one of me.

OK, here’re some thoughts to get the ballrolling...

The guest speaker sets up the ‘rules’ for thediscussion and for the relationship he will havewith the participants. In this way he reveals‘strategic thinking about his role as a tutor.’(McConnell 2003) The pattern he suggests atthe beginning he adheres to for the duration ofthe discussion. He states his prejudices and hispreferences and cites Crook (2002) and Breen(2002) to illustrate his points about ‘blendedlearning’. The participants were stimulated byhis ease with the medium and his obviouswealth of knowledge, and were prompted to toseek answers for their own projects.

The web log discussion board formed an inter-esting contrast: the teacher’s introduction wasbrief, chatty and invited the students to theirown site—

This is your chat page—all of you from L.F.!I thought I'd set it up so that on Friday youcan start chatting. It's pretty late at night soI'm going to log-off now. Speak to youFriday! Jane.

There were 16 students in the group, from 12different countries, and their ages ranged from20 to 67. Two had been in Australia for over 20years; two had been here for only a few months.Three were overseas-qualified professionalswith a fairly sophisticated command of English,while at least five other members of the grouphad completed no formal education at all.

These students were enrolled in a ‘LanguageFrameworks’ course which has the explicit aimof improving English listening, speaking,reading and writing skills. This course is delib-erately flexible, which lent itself especially wellto the use of the blog. There was a need forcontinued contact with other students outsidethe classroom, for extended ‘whole language’learning, as well as an expressed student needfor increased time using computers. The blogprovided an opportunity for extending languageand literacy skills, for practising computerskills, for learning to read and write on a website, and for exploring the Internet, through‘real’ tasks. The students felt they wereworking, and that these tasks were valuable.

The blog also provided a very important socialmeeting place—students shared moments ofsadness and of elation. They discovered waysto address individuals and groups, and theydeveloped friendships and continued conversa-tions outside the actual classroom. The blogwas student-centred in the simplest of ways—the students owned it.

In our conference presentation, we showedextracts from each discussion board. We intro-duced the different formats, and discussed theway each board functions. We selected entrieswhich demonstrated the ways in which the par-ticipants interacted with the moderator and witheach other. We looked at the personal stylesthat developed; the way in which some partici-pants ‘lurked’ and watched for a while beforeentering; the growing sense of an online com-munity, and the changing and evolvingdiscourse.

We would like to encourage other teachers togain as much pleasure as we have done fromintroducing students to the concept of ‘talkingwith their fingers’! (Hawkridge, Morgan andJelfs, 1997). We had hoped that our presenta-tion would be interactive, and it was. We wereasked to set up a blog and were delighted thatso many people wanted to trial what we hadbeen discussing. Please visit it athttp://www.ACAL2004.blogspot.com and, if youwould like to join those of us who are alreadyblogging, send us an email.

The authors can be contacted at—[email protected]

[email protected]

Literacy Link December 2004 5

This has been is a watershed year forAustralia’s Indigenous people.Indigenous programs are now adminis-

tered by mainstream agencies, under a‘whole-of-government’ approach. In the States,Territories and regions, multi-agencyIndigenous Coordination Centres (ICCs) havebeen established, managed by an Office ofIndigenous Policy Coordination (OIPC) withinthe Department of Immigration and Multiculturaland Indigenous Affairs. Indigenous organisa-tions providing services will have to deliver ontheir obligations under reformed fundingarrangements that focus on outcome. Programguidelines will be more flexible, inviting innova-tion. Improved accountability, performancemonitoring and reporting are part of the newarrangements.

This new reality has its roots in recent reportsand studies into the sustainable development ofIndigenous communities, which point to a raft ofissues in need of attention, including literacyand numeracy. Partners in a Learning Culture,Australia’s National Aboriginal and Torres StraitIslander Strategy for Vocational Education &Training 2000-2005, published by theAustralian National Training Authority (ANTA) isa core document underpinning new Indigenouspolicy development. According to ANTA,‘Indigenous people are disadvantagedAustralians ….(with) far less access to ongoinglifelong learning than other Australians’. Thisdisadvantage is a consequence of:• Lower income—Indigenous people in the 25-

44 age group have a weekly median incomeof $265 compared to $437 for all Australiansin the same group. Low income restricts bothaccess to VET and opportunity for furtherprofessional development.

• The ‘Stolen Generations’—10% ofIndigenous adults aged 25 and over wereremoved from their natural family duringchildhood. The consequence of this disloca-tion, magnified by the close Indigenousfamily and community ties are immense.

• Poor literacy and numeracy skills. It is criticalthat VET accommodates different levels ofliteracy and numeracy. Training and educa-tion providers need to operate inenvironments that complement, are sensitiveto and affirm cultures, multi-literacies andfirst languages.

• Geographic and social isolation. TheNational Aboriginal and Torres Strait IslanderSurvey (ABS 1995) established that 64% ofIndigenous people in rural areas live morethan 50 kms from the nearest TAFE College.This dispersion requires the delivery of VET

which is both culturally appropriate and flexi-ble. New technologies offer significantpotential in helping to redress inequitableaccess. The educational disadvantage expe-rienced by Indigenous Australians isevidenced through minimal formal educationand low levels of literacy and numeracy(ANTA 2003).

Dodson and Smith (2003) in theirpaper Governance for SustainableDevelopment emphasised thateffective governance training is akey ingredient in supportingIndigenous self reliance.

In response to the new realities,The VET sector developed BSB40901 Certificate IV in Business(Governance), a qualif icationdesigned to meet the needs ofIndigenous governing committeemembers, to support self management andassist with organisational capacity building.

This 13 unit Certificate (8 core units with 5 elec-tives) can be difficult to achieve, since noqualif ication exists below it. Certif icate IVdemands a level of prior training whichIndigenous board members with low levels ofliteracy and numeracy, with minimal formal edu-cation and fewer computer skills do not have.Nor does the Certificate IV take into accountthe disadvantage related to geographic isola-tion of Indigenous people in rural Australia, andlack of resources resulting from that.

The Windara Project was developed inresponse to the findings above, and to new gov-ernment directions and initiatives.

Sue Muller and myself, directors of TheLearning Workshop, the Cairns-based LiteracyProvider, were looking for a tool to improve theliteracy and numeracy skills of Indigenousboard members to enable them to run theirorganisations more effectively. Out of this needwe developed Windara, a storytelling-basedCD-ROM about a fictitious Indigenous commu-nity in south east Queensland.

We focused on improving the level of literacyand overcoming geographic isolation as thebest ways to bridge the gap between existingcompetencies and the level or prior trainingnecessary to achieve Certificate IV, BuildingSkills for Indigenous Governance.

At Windara, the Community Health Service

Building skills for Indigenous governanceby Cathrena McRae


Governing Committee develops several keyprocesses—how to plan for organisationalneeds; how to use the constitution and how tomanage a board meeting—three processesembracing three of the core units of CertificateIV.

Interactively, learners are taken through theprocess of reviewing Windara’s strategic plan,and developing a new constitution which is thenpassed by a governing committee.

To test the effectiveness of the CD, field trialswere conducted in diverse Indigenous commu-nities and organisations. Trial participants wereasked to navigate the CD and to record theirimpressions. Their feedback indicated thatWindara helped to develop literacy skills, wasculturally appropriate, at the right level, inter-esting and fun.

Wider product usage however is needed to fullyevaluate the CD’s effectiveness. Windara hasbeen a lengthy and challenging process, whichis not surprising, when you consider the essen-

tials necessary for the product to succeed:• There was a lot of information which had to

be incorporated. • Every competency level is complex, mirroring

the complexities of organisational governance and this CD covers three compe-tencies.

• It had to address all the elements of competency—yet it could not be a learningguide.

• it had to be culturally appropriate and reflectthe integrated nature of governance learning.

Windara is funded under the 2003 ANTA AdultLiteracy National Project by the Commonwealththrough the Department of Education, Scienceand Training.

For more Information contact Cathrena McRae

or Sue Muller [email protected]

[email protected]

The editorial committee of LIteracy Link isseeking articles from literacy and numeracy practitioners that reflect good

practice, or which spotlight a particularprovider, program or research project.

Literacy Link is the newsletter of the AustralianCouncil of Adult Literacy (ACAL). It is a 16page newsletter produced six times per year. Itis circulated nationally to over 1800 adult litera-cy and numeracy researchers, policy makersand providers.

Literacy Link features news items that affect thefield, including policy changes and commentary,forthcoming professional development events,information from DEST and ANTA as well ascontributions from practitioners. Literacy Linkalso provides contact details of state and terri-tory associations. Literacy Link does not includeadvertising.

Note that Literacy Link is not a refereedresearch journal for academic consumption—itis a newsletter mainly read by practitioners andothers working in the literacy or numeracy field.With this in mind, its focus is on readability.

Articles are usually one or two pages—up to say1600 words. Because we are a nationalnewsletter, we are also happy to republish yourexisting material if, for example, it has onlybeen seen by readers in your own state. Youmight also include literacy or numeracy teach-

ing materials that have been developed withyour specific project in mind. These can be anadditional couple of pages and are usuallyreproduced 'as is' so that readers get a sampleof good practice in materials development. Theymight even use this material in their ownclasses.

Photos, graphics, charts &c are well received.Photos should depict a diverse range of people(in terms of sex and cultural background)involved in interesting activities. Be sure youhave permission from the subject to reproducetheir image for publication. (Take care withimages taken straight from the Web—they areusually low resolution and too blurry for publication.)

Send copy as an email attachment (MS Word orsimilar) to the editor at—

[email protected]

Literacy Link web archiveElectronic copies of Literacy Link may beperused and downloaded from the Internet atwww.acal.edu.au

Subscriptions to Literacy Link Subscription is free and can be arranged byposting your address on the back of an envelope to—

Literacy Link 1 Abinger Street

Richmond, Victoria 3121

Literacy Link—invitation to contributors


Ten years ago the state of learning wassuch that two-thirds of children enteredsecondary school with a low skills set,

meaning they were unlikely to be able to reallyget to grips with the secondary school curricu-lum. One result of this was a 20-25% ‘successrate’ at age 16, in terms of school leavershaving the levels of language, numeracy and lit-eracy skil ls to underpin their transferableemployability across into their first job and oninto subsequent jobs or promotions. Whilst9,000 adults were in basic skills classes, witharound 3,000 substantially making progresseach year, the entry of an equivalent number ofunderachieving school leavers into the ‘pot’meant that the overall size of the adult problemremained the same year in, year out.

There was a realisation that Birmingham’sambition to be a forward-moving city was beingheld back by the ‘drag effects’ of low levels ofbasic skills. Existing mechanisms to bringabout change (annual development bids; frag-mentary attempts at being ‘innovative’; shortterm funding; disconnected developments evenacross different parts of the same organisation,let alone across different organisations;‘either/or’ arguments about educationalapproaches; focusing on processes, meetings,ownerships, structures etc) had got us to wherewe were, and so were not going to be the solu-tion. A totally new approach had to be tried out.

In 1995 the major education and training bodiesacross the city signed up to working in partner-ship and to having joint development moneysitting behind a jointly agreed annual businessplan. All of this was ambitious and innovative atthe time. The approach is now also being usedat regional level (an English region coversaround 6 or 7 million people). The national‘Skills for Life’ adult basic skills strategy intro-duced in 2001 similarly takes a cross-cabinet,whole-government approach.

In all cases the purpose is to ensure that largernumbers of learners get ready access to anappropriate, high quality service whichever partof the system they find themselves in and theythen can expect to make progress. Previously

the variability between providers was too great;learners were far from guaranteed any substan-tial outcome to their learning, and moving fromone bit of the system to another could easilymean the learner disappearing down the gulfs,or being endlessly re-assessed by differentorganisations.

The realisation that the partner organisationscouldn’t solve their problems alone, and thecommitment to get real about finding a way ofproductive working in partnership that wouldfocus on maximising change and keeping pro-cedural structures to an absolute minimum, wasbegun in a different political climate to the onethat exists now. The work was started beforeany national school literacy or numeracy strate-gies; before the election of the currentgovernment; at a time when publicly fundedorganisations were often being defined as theproblem rather than the solution; when somehistorical funding was being shifted onto moremodern agendas (but coming across as ‘cuts’)and so on.

The original ‘start-off’ long-term developmentresources were gained by redefining an area-based regeneration budget as being applicableto the regeneration of people (through higherskills etc) rather than simply assuming that itonly applied to physical regeneration. ThePartnership made rapid success early on.Reflecting on why it was able to be so effectivefrom the beginning has highlighted a few ele-ments (that are adaptable to otherdevelopmental contexts):• The partners were able to bring about large-

scale change to parts of theeducation/learning infrastructure. They werethe organisations responsible for runningchunks of the system; their chief executivesand leaders met as a strategic board 3-4times a year. The senior managers of theseorganisations then came together to puttogether the annual business plan and tomake sure that their own teams and owndelivery mechanisms were best placed torespond.

• A system of loose ‘attachments’ of

Birmingham’s aspiration to become a ‘learningcity’ has lessons for Australia

In July 2004 ACAL and Adult Learning Australia invited Geoff Bateson to Australia to describe some of the journeythat Birmingham, England, has made in trying to drive up levels of language, literacy and numeracy (LLN) for allages via all organisations in the city i.e., taking a ‘whole-Birmingham’ approach. Geoff also described how thedevelopment work to improve adult LLN outcomes in the city was interacting with the more recent national whole-of-government developments.

Geoff Bateson (UK)


development workers, for a small proportionof their time, to the Partnership meant thatthe partner organisations had a direct mech-anism for discussions with each other, on aday-to-day basis, about what ideas each wasthinking of. This was vital since thePartnership was intended not to take on a lifeof its own, but to operate by influencing theways the various partners planned and deliv-ered their mainstream services.

• The focus was kept on changing how peopledid their existing jobs and what supports andchallenges they needed to be able to suc-cessfully make changes. Initially these weremostly ‘education workers’ i.e. school teach-ers and support staff; college and adulteducation teachers and learner-supportpeople; but soon included librarians; staff ofpreschool groups; probation service staff;health service workers; people in socialbenefit and work-linked offices etc.

• The other dimension to focusing on changewas to keep stressing that we were engagedin development activity, i.e., were aDevelopment Partnership. Reports to theBoard mentioned money only in passing –the focus was on ‘change’ and on ‘gettingthere’.

• The business planning against the samestrategic objectives meant that, although theemphasis may change from year to year,rapid progress would be made across abroad set of fronts, in ways that went faster,deeper, wider than any partner organisationon their own could manage.

The scale of the task was set as challenging aspossible whilst still being just at the edge ofbeing realistically feasible. For example, thetask around adult basic skills was to halve theproblem over the ten years from 2000 to 2010.The 140,000 adults with low levels of basicskills would be reduced to 70,000. This wouldbe achievable if we reduced the ‘flow’ in fromschools by working to double the success rateof school leavers (which we did); by doublingthe number of adults working seriously on thegaps in their spiky profile of basic skills (whichwe have more than achieved); and by improvingthe achievements on courses (which we arecurrently doing).

70,000 felt like an unmanageable number, butover 10 years it meant 7,000 ‘successes’ peryear. The types of people likely to have low

basic skil ls were known, as were the programs designed to meet these needs.Breaking the 7,000 down into groups andlooking at how individuals progressed throughthe various programs, most relevant to thosegroups, made the whole thing feel much moredo-able.

We needed ever more reliable and ever moredis-aggregated data and that was something weput energy and resources into. Analysing thisdata has helped us be more and more specificabout what needs accelerating, for what groupsof people, in which locations across the city –which has helped pinpoint the agencies alreadyengaged with those learners and the mostappropriate responses to make.

In some cases this has led to clarifying theroles (signposting to other provision; doinginitial assessments; meeting people’s needs butnot necessarily by direct teaching etc.) thatstaff can play in housing, in libraries, in com-munity groups etc. Some of the work has beenpractical (producing helpful checklists or exem-plars; confirming the roles already played;pointing out the gaps and the things that mightbe done); some of the work was more on atti-tudes and assumptions (unravelling that adultlearners mostly didn’t mind assessment andachievement, if done properly; lifting the defini-tion of adult basic skills to mean much, muchmore than being equated with learners who arelikely to make fairly slow progress to focus onthe larger numbers who may need a rapid,intensive, focused brush up on specific, neutralskills).

Considerable progress has been made:• literacy levels are climbing—halving the need

by 2010 is quite feasible• numeracy is a huge problem—larger need;

few classes; very few skilled teachers etc.–but we’re focusing on it

• basic skills work has a high profile—and inmany ways is leading the way

• literacy, language and numeracy have beenbuilt into a range of other developments andis included in the long term Community Planfor the area

• literacy and numeracy have been connectedto the progress to be made if Birmingham isto aspire to be a learning city and if it is toraise the levels in particular neighbourhoods.

All of this is exciting stuff—but challenging—and necessary, which is what keeps us goingand why we are happy to exchange ideas withothers as much as possible.

Geoff Bateson Partnership Manager, Birmingham Core Skills

Development Partnershipwww.coreskills.co.uk

‘In just a couple of years the literacy levels of 2—3% of the Birmingham population have

lifted by one level.’


North bound train—WELL training that works

Workplace Education of Adelaide Institute of TAFE has been working in partnership with Orrcon, the third largestmanufacturer and distributor of steel tubing in Australia, to develop and trial a dynamic and innovative trainingmodel, which we labelled 'North Bound Train' under the Workplace English Language and Literacy (WELL)program in the last two years. 'North Bound Train' sets out with the ambitious aim of ‘bridging the gaps betweenan organisation and its employees by bringing everyone on board to find the purpose, set the directions and shapethe destiny of the organisation’.

To validate the outcomes of the program,we invited Mr Nick Conley, OperationsManager of the Orrcon SA Precision

Tubing Plant to share his views with us. Whathe has written is solid proof of the significantbenefits that a series of WELL training pro-grams could provide for the employees,organisation and industry:

'The benefits to the company due to training aretwo-fold as I can see it. Firstly there is thedevelopment of the employees so they reachtheir potential, and there are also the effectsthat the training has on improving the perfor-mance of the machines on site as well.'

Nick went on to use two examples to show thebenefits of training on the Orrcon SA site.

Example 1Sam (not his real name for confidentialityreasons—he is part Aboriginal) has beenworking at Orrcon for over 15 years. He hasworked in a number of departments, but it is fairto say that Orrcon management have seenrapid improvement in Sam's performance sinceWorkplace Education of Adelaide Institute ofTAFE has been involved in WELL training atOrrcon. Sam has actively taken part in a seriesof 'Business Communication' courses andlearned the skil ls of workplace assessors.Since the initial training, Sam has gone from aforklift driver to 'Continuous ImprovementTeam' member to 'Process Innovation Team'member to Area Coordinator of Cutting toProduction Coordinator, all in a short period oftime. The fast tracking of Sam through thesevarious roles would not have been possiblewithout the implementation of the WELL train-ing. Orrcon would not have seen or even beable to recognise Sam's potential.

Sam is probably the best example on this site,but there are many others who are striving toreach the achievements of Sam. With the helpof Workplace Education in conjunction withWELL programs, others can reach theseheights, which provide Orrcon a considerableadvantage in the ever-increasing global market

of steel tube manufacturing.

Example 2With an increased understanding of communi-cation on the part of the employees comes theresponsibility for management to maintain com-munication and provide feedback to allemployees on the performance of the variousproduction departments.

Several years ago Orrcon upgraded its slittingmachine to ensure that we were providingquality slit steel to the tube mills. Basically steelarrives on our site in 1200mm widths weighinganywhere from 7 to 11 tonnes. The slittersreduce the steel down to a width to manufacturetube. For a period of four months after theupgrade we were unable to produce this slitsteel at much more than 750 metres per shifthour. However with the use of two personneltrained in the language and literacy course thatsupported the Certificate IV Assessment andWorkplace Training, we were to train the slit-ters, who carried out a series of brainstormingsessions to lift the production to over 1100metres per shift hour (see graph below).

The important factor was not only the roles ofthe trainers, but the fact that the employees hadattended the Business of Communication

by Wing-Yin Chan Lee & Lyn Hunter


course conducted by Lyn Hunter. They warmedto the skills of communication and the thoughtprocesses required to carry out brainstormingsessions. That is why they were able to under-stand what was required even given that peoplein this department were from different culturalbackgrounds.

As with many workplaces, Orrcon has in thepast four years undergone major changes:merging and amalgamation, investment from aforeign company, consolidation of its marketposition in its traditional products whileexpanding to new products and services andoverseas markets. These changes would havebeen incredibly disruptive and difficult withoutthe involvement of Workplace Education. As for its employees, with the change of theirenvironment, the nature of their work alsochanges. The most obvious challenge is for thecommunication skills of the operators. Whenthe company consolidated middle managementpositions, greater demands were placed on theroles of the operators. Many of these new rolesare not foreign to other enterprises, forexample giving and receiving instructions toimplement, monitor and report on manufactur-ing procedures and compliance with policiesand legislative requirements. But it is a realchallenge for our company with its employeesbeing predominately male, 30% from NESB.Most are aged between 25 and 45 years andare early school leavers with long-term literacyand numeracy needs.

When Adelaide Institute of TAFE was invited towork out training solutions for the company, themain challenge was to link the workforce to themission of the company. The company's corpo-rate objectives are:

• 'Teamwork—everyone works as a team'— howcould this happen when most operators workin isolation with earmuffs on the productionline?

• 'Commitment—everyone pulls their weight' —how could this happen when majority of theoperators are early school leavers, with lan-guage, literacy and numeracy needs and lackthe confidence and skil ls to communicate?

• 'Value employees as everyone is thecompany's internal customer'—how can thecompany motivate the operators with lowconfidence and self esteem to move forwardto be future company leaders even if theyhave demonstrated the required skills?

With the help of WELL funding, AdelaideInstitute of TAFE put forward a training

proposal, using the concept of 'North BoundTrain', a symbol that the whole organisationcan relate to, to promote a whole-of-organisation approach to training. Its analogyand rationale are that trains are made of steel;north bound is heading for the market directionthat the company is aiming at and everyonewithin the organisation needs to be on boardthe train. Most importantly, training is ajourney, during which everyone can share hisor her experience and expectation of the desti-nation— where will we be at the end of thetraining?

By integrating communication skills with arange of metal engineering competency stan-dards, we have shown the extensive use ofcommunication and generic skills underpinninga holistic training approach. The evidencequoted by the Operations Manager abovedemonstrated that as LLN practitioners, wecould translate a national Training Packageinto something meaningful to disengagedgroups of learners and re-engage them in thelearning process.

We have proved that learning could provide acareer opportunity that had not previouslybeen considered possible by workers and theiremployers. We have demonstrated to acompany that machinery could be of secondaryimportance while its people, the key asset ofany organisation, could turn machinery into ameaningful and productive tool. Investment inits people was critical for bringing the employ-ers and employees together for organisationallong-term growth and sustainability.

Orrcon has gone through a long journey in itstraining and development. At this stage, thetraining model developed in South Australia isheading north to the organisation's head officein Brisbane and the Oil and Gas Pipe plant atWollongong. Moreover, we are confident inclaiming that everyone within the organisationis able to communicate and contribute to'finding the purpose, setting the directions andshaping the destiny of the organisation'.

Wing-Yin Chan [email protected]

Lyn [email protected]


12 Literacy Link June 2004

ACAL is pleased to publish these NCVERResearch Overviews in Literacy Link. We invitereaders to contribute their responses to them.



ACAL is pleased to publish these NCVER ResearchOverviews in Literacy Link. We invite readers tocontribute their responses to them.

Bremer TAFE received funding for amature-age Job Search Program.Advertisements were placed in local

newspapers calling for applications from peoplewho were interested in returning to work. Thecourse was offered free of charge and was to bedelivered over six weeks. Five modules weretaken from the Certif icate l in WorkplacePreparation and Practices 39030 QLD.Prepared units for each module were self-paced;however, there was significant teacher assis-tance and guidance given.

The program started with two groups of 15 stu-dents—three men and 27 women. All applicantswent through exactly the same selectionprocess, were enrolled in the same units andwere taught by the same teachers but from thefirst lesson it was glaringly obvious that the twogroups were very different.

Information gained from the interview processrevealed that the majority of the students suf-fered from low self-esteem. In the course ofdiscussion many participants revealed that theyhad been involved in (and some still were in)abusive relationships. Further, in the twogroups there were a number of participants whofelt that they had been socially isolated. Inmany cases this isolation could be partly attrib-uted to the participants’ involvement in abusiverelationships and in other cases it was becausethey had been full time carers of children withsevere physical, mental and emotional condi-tions as well as carers of aged parents who alsohad a range of associated health problems. Theinterview process clearly indicated that manystudents had not achieved Year 10 level atschool and that they had unpleasant memoriesof school.

In spite of l ife having treated them quiteharshly, one group approached the programwith trepidation but with a commitment toseeing the course through and overcoming allobstacles. It was clear that they had madedecisions about the need to change their situa-tion and they were mentally prepared to see thecourse as the first step.

The students were open and receptive to all

new ideas, approaches, suggestions and rel-ished the challenges that the learningpresented.

On the other hand, the other group were over-whelmed by the requirements of an accreditedtraining course and the effort that was requiredof participants to achieve outcomes. Every newconcept was met with resistance and aggres-sion as they showed their unwillingness to movefrom their comfort zone. This resistance couldhave been attributed in part to their lack of liter-acy skills and the fact that they were unwillingfor this lack to be revealed.

The effect of these differences on the programwas considerable. One group bonded, showedinitiative in organising and prioritising theirwork, instigated peer tutoring and generallysupported each other through the process. On anumber of occasions various participantsexpressed their appreciation at the opportunitythis training was giving them. The teacherswere accepted as part of the team and viewedas a resource to help them achieve their aims.

By contrast, the other group operated in a verydifferent way. The sub-sets they formed werecharacterised by misunderstandings and hurtfeelings, and changed frequently. Studentsspent a lot of time adjusting to the differentgroup norms. The teachers believed they wereviewed as authority figures rather than anadjunct to the learning process. The socialopportunities offered by the course were moreimportant than working towards any of the out-comes of the training.

In spite of the difference in attitudes and readi-ness for learning between the two groups, thesame outcomes were to be achieved within thesame time frame. There was a concern toensure that the students finished the coursewith positive outcomes and feelings of successand not to add one more failure to their lives.One group finished with time to spare whereas


One size does not fit all

This article highlights the importance of the intellectual and emotional readiness of participants in determiningwhether they are able to fully engage in a job search program based on accredited training. The situation is com-plicated by teachers being confined to teaching pre-determined outcomes with limited capacity to tailor theprogram to meet the needs of the individual students. The following case study highlights this situation. Bremer TAFE (Queensland) submitted this article to their Minister’s office for approval prior to publication in‘Literacy Link’.

by Jo Gardiner and Margherita Buys

“Currently we put the cart before the horse becausewe have the funding and THEN we get the participants.”


AUSTRALIAN COUNCIL FOR ADULT LITERACY

Co-President: (shared position)Jan HagstonCAE Language Australia LtdGPO Box 372FMelbourne VIC 3001Ph: 09 9657 [email protected]

Co-President: (shared position)Pauline O’MaleyCrosslink548 Mt Alexander RoadAscot Vale VIC 3032Ph: 03 9372 [email protected]

Secretary: Robyn JayNSW Adult and Community EdPh:02 6628 7499Email: [email protected]

Treasurer: Lorraine SushamesFac. Indigenous Research and EdNorthern Territory University 0909Ph: 08 8946 [email protected]

Immediate Past President: Jim ThompsonPh: 08 9586 [email protected]

ACT Rep: Christine O'CallaghanCanberra Institute of TechnologyPO Box 826 Canberra ACT 2601Ph: 02 6207 4054 christine.o'[email protected]

NSW Rep: Christel DoemlingPetersham College of TAFEPh: 02 9335 2536 Fx 02 9939 [email protected]

QLD Rep: Stephen WardPh: 07 3817 [email protected]

NT Rep: to be advisedTAS Rep: Wendy StothersPh 03 6233 [email protected]

SA Rep: Rosemary WoodPh: 08 8391 7377 [email protected]

VIC Rep: Sheryl SinclairPh: 03 5723 [email protected]

WA Rep: Margaret McHughPh: 08 9264 [email protected]

Co-opted: Rosie WickertUniversity of Technology SydneyPh: 02 9514 3818 [email protected]

Co-opted: Karen [email protected]

Exec Support: Alex TsakmakisACAL, PO Box 850Reservoir VIC 3073Ph: 03 9469 2950 fax: 03 9402 1143email: [email protected]

STATE AFFILIATE COUNCILS

ACTCALPO Box 778Jamison ACT [email protected]

NSW ALNCC/o Leslie SteinEmail: [email protected]

NT CALPO Box 31UCharles Darwin UniversityDarwin NT 0815

QCALPO Box 301Redhill QLD 4059Ph/Fx: 07 3878 9944

SACALPO Box 610Magill SA [email protected]: 0417 890 774

TCALPO Box 4530Bathurst StHobart TAS 7000

VALBECPh: 03 9546 [email protected]

WAALCC/- 19 Brittain StreetComo WA [email protected]

ACAL contact deta i ls

the other group required an extra fifteen hoursto complete the course requirements. The extrahours were an initiative of the teachers and notthe group.

Did all the students leave the program with thesame knowledge? Even though both groupscompleted the course, the question of whetheror not transferable knowledge was gained by allparticipants is doubted. In one group the stu-dents were actively job searching as the courseprogressed. Many had taken the initiative andregistered with Centrelink and would dailysearch for jobs on the Internet. Over half thegroup had already applied for jobs and somehad already taken part in interviews. However,the other group offered many excuses for nottaking their first job searching step and werequite aggressive when encouraged to do this.

What is the solution? If these programs whichare intended to assist long-term unemployedpeople to return to work are truly to addresssome of the barriers they face, there needs tobe more flexibility in the choice of trainingoptions and a change to the funding.

Currently we put the cart before the horsebecause we have the funding and then we getthe participants. In the above situation if we hadbeen able to redesign the program completelywe would have offered a mixture of accreditedand non-accredited training for one group andcompletely accredited training for the other.

The variable of 'the time allotted to the deliveryof the course' should also be able to be tackledwhen problems arise. Is the aim to get studentsthrough the courses? Or is it to genuinelyaddress their problems and then prepare acareer plan that caters for their needs? This webelieve would have met the needs of bothgroups.

This exercise has certainly confirmed that 'Onesize does not fit all.'

Jo Gardiner and Margherita [email protected]

One size does not fit all (cont.)

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