The Literacy Factor: Adding Value to Training. Investigation of the Inclusion of Literacy in Training Packages in the Food Processing Industry.

This report is part of a broader national project whereby the six ALNARC (Adult Literacy and Numeracy Australian Research Consortium) centres have designed an integrated research process to highlight the current and possible difficulties and propose solutions to ensure that language, literacy and numeracy (LL&N) skills development and assessment are attended to as training packages are implemented and delivered within Australian workplaces. This report from the Victorian centre investigated the effects of the inclusion of LL&N in industry standards at two sites in the food processing industry. In particular, the report investigated the ways in which support and training are provided in the literacy and numeracy competencies implicit in industry standards and how effective that provision was. The work of four enterprise based teachers who were working to deliver quality training within a training package framework, was documented in this report. The report found that workers with language and literacy needs were being provided with support at Level 1 in order to demonstrate competence in food handling and occupational health and safety, for examples, but that support was highly targeted and left no time for basic training in those areas. The report found that more research is needed to investigate the relationships between literacy needs and how those needs are met in pre and post-assessment, and into the extent to which the predominantly informal strategies for literacy support can be developed to sustain learning outcomes in the long term.