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December 12, 9am-4pm Aerial Function Centre, 235 Jones Street, Sydney  This conference invites participants to critically explore the transformations in our field of Adult Basic Education, and how we want to respond to our field being re-badged or subsumed as 'foundation skills’. What do we gain, what do we lose? More importantly, what does this mean for learners? Are we simply being nostalgic, or is there something fundamental that we do not want to lose as a result of the name change? If so, what are some new spaces and places where we can be part of realising our learners’ dreams and aspirations?  Keynote speakers  Pam Osmond is known to many adult literacy and numeracy practitioners in Australia as a highly experienced and respected adult literacy teacher and mentor, author of many resources including Literacy Face to Face, and teacher educator at UTS and TAFE NSW. Pam has commenced a research project on the history of our field in NSW, and will share some of her ear...

2014 NSW Adult Literacy & Numeracy Council Conference:   What's in a name? From ABE to Foundation Skills – and beyond? As adult education providers in NSW prepare for the implementation of the new Smart and Skilled policy environment, and experience the impact of the National Foundation Skills Strategy for Adults, many of us are increasingly asking: what about our 'second chance' learners we have had in our classrooms for many years; where will they go; will their needs be met? What has happened to Adult Basic Education? Much history, passion, commitment to social justice and importantly a belief in the power of education is vested in the name ‘Adult Basic Education’ which many of us identify as our ‘field’. But even in the last two decades, we have assumed other identities – adult literacy/ numeracy, language, literacy and numeracy (LLN), learner support, tutorial support, foundation education/ studies/ skills, workplace language and literacy teachers, practitioners, a...

Refocusing program accountability: Lifelong and life-wide perspective on literacy and numeracy development Presented by Professor Stephen Reder, Portland State University Thursday 23 October, 2014 UTS, Sydney Stephen Reder’s study is a longitudinal study of adult LLN learners, that provides important insights about how we think about the benefits of adult LLN programs in the short and long term. His presentation at this year’s  ACAL conference  was received very highly by practitioners, researchers and those involved in policy deliberations. Keynote  presentation download

Suzanne Jarret from NSW Corrective Services was presenter for our first Council forum held on 10 April. Suzanne shared with us her work in teaching ethics in her education program in the gaol. She presented some case studies of scenarios she has worked on with her learners in the gaol, and how they engaged with these scenarios. She also explained that in terms of meeting the curriculum requirements of the formal curriculum, the topics she used for her ethics sessions afforded many opportunities to meet the formal requirements of the course. Seminars such as Suzanne’s that are based on the real experiences of practitioners and which challenge and expand our thinking about what we can do in the classrooms are well received and we welcome other suggestions of possible seminar presenters.

In 2013 the NSW Adult Literacy & Numeracy Council (NSW ALNC) hosted the ACAL conference - for details and presentations go to the   conference website . 8 conference themes ran through the conference: Creating educational pathways Developing the L and N workforce Interrogating theories and policies Embedding LLN in VET Working with VET products Improving people's lives (Tuesday only) Strengthening communities (Wednesday only) Innovative learning environments The  preliminary findings  of the 2011/2012 international adult literacy survey – PIAAC (Programme of International Assessment of Adult Competence) have just been released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Australia was one of 26 countries that participated in this survey, and leading educational groups are already highlighting the ‘alarming’ findings and their implications for the skills of educational providers to improve adult literacy and numeracy levels. In recent years education policy researchers have...

Reading the digital word, to read the digital world? Held in partnership with the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, UTS at:  Aerial Function Centre,  University of Technology, Sydney