The Commission on Education and Employment Opportunities for Young People (Youth Commission) aims to find ways to improve education and employment opportunities for England's 16-24-year olds. The Commission's first report (see ED604277) identified five key challenges: (1) Better supporting 700,000 young people not in education, employment or…

Provides precise definitions of the terms literacy and basic skills and shows the natural connection between them. (HOD)

Reports on the extent of illiteracy in the United States and explores various definitions of literacy. (GT)

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) is leading a national strategy to improve the United Kingdom's financial capability (FSA, 2006). The strategy recognises that there is a need for Financial Literacy education across all areas of society, from children in school to mature adults in all walks of life. In order to meet this need and to be…

One of the necessities of basic literacy--basic knowledge--is divided into specific content area disciplines for instructional purposes; but the other need--competence in language skills--can and should be taught by teachers in all disciplines. High school content area teachers can promote the tenets of basic literacy by emphasizing the effective…

Ontario's College Standards and Accreditation Council (CSAC) devised a plan to enhance three dimensions of college education: general education, generic skills; and vocational or professional education. The CSAC designates generic skills as practical life skills essential for both personal and career success, defining these practical, portable…

The joint UNESCO-UNICEF Monitoring Education-for-All Goals Project was launched in September 1992. The first phase of the project was implemented in five pilot countries (China, Jordan, Mali, Mauritius, and Morocco) with the express aim of providing national decision makers with practical tools for monitoring basic education in their countries and…

This report describes a low-cost, adaptable methodology for assessment of basic learning competencies (BLCs) in diverse cultural contexts. Following the introduction, section 2 provides a policy framework and covers priority populations; policy and assessment needs; challenges for policy-driven assessments; and questions policymakers might have.…

This document describes a literacy project in rural Ecuador using a modified version of Sylvia Ashton Warner's language experience approach. This method allows learners to approach written culture on their own terms by learning words important to their life, then transferring these works to sentences and stories. The approach reduces the rural…

Letter and syllable dice devised for a project in rural Ecuador provide inexpensive, easily reproducible learning materials for practice in basic literary skills. Eleven wooden cubes with six letters on each cube are cast onto a surface and the player constructs words from the letters on the top side of the dice. After a word is formed and…

As a source of trained workers, postsecondary schools need to develop a curriculum that encourages critical thinking and provide an environment that helps students to understand the changing economy. The curriculum should be based on the student's experiences and interests and should prepare one for life situations. In the business curriculum,…