CCL Home > Newsroom > Speeches
Thank you for joining us today to celebrate the launch of the Canadian Council on Learning’s Adult Learning Knowledge Centre, one of five Knowledge Centres that CCL is creating across Canada. The other Knowledge Centres, which will be announced in the coming weeks, will focus on, aboriginal learning, early childhood learning health and learning and work and learning.
Before I start my formal remarks, I’d like to recognize the Honourable Madeleine Dubé, New Brunswick’s Minister of Education, who will be one of our speakers today. I am delighted to have a representatives from a provincial government join us to celebrate the launch of the Adult Learning Knowledge Centre.
Today’s launch coincides with the commencement of UNESCO’S International Adult Learners’ Week, which starts tomorrow. Adult Learners’ Week is a worldwide celebration of the joy of learning in all its forms and in all settings. I am delighted that the Canadian Council on Learning is contributing to that celebration by creating a centre that will focus on the needs of the adult learner.
CCL was created following extensive national consultations that identified the importance of lifelong learning in today’s knowledge-based society and economy. Leaders from all walks of Canadian life —education, business, labour, government, aboriginal organizations and non-governmental organizations of many kinds — agreed that Canada must move beyond rhetoric about lifelong and life-broad learning. They called for better links among the various parts of our learning systems — a national roadmap for learning throughout an individual’s lifespan.
People also wanted to know what educational models and practices work well, and which do not — in Canada and abroad — so that they could make informed choices about learning. Both business and labour saw a need for national perspectives, national solutions, to issues of workplace learning, in order to create the conditions for innovation and productivity.
That is why the task which drives us on at CCL is that of making a real difference to the learning lives of Canadians.
But learning is not just about innovation and productivity; learning plays a key role in personal development, social participation and social cohesion.
CCL will examine learning issues from a wide range of perspectives. Our approach is based on a model of collaboration. CCL will partner with all levels of government, learning institutions, non-governmental organisations and learners to enhance existing networks, skills and organizations. The vision of CCL is to link Canadians from all regions in sharing learning experiences and promoting the enhancement of learning as a core value of a distinctive Canadian society.
Our work is, of course, about public policy in that vast field of human endeavour we call learning. This carries importance well beyond policy makers and researchers. Public policy is for the public: we need to address issues in ways which people can understand and use; we need to make a difference to people in communities; and to put research to use in daily practice.
Yes, we want practices and policy in education to be evidence and research based, but we also want practice-based research.
We are also a proudly pan-Canadian organization. We will link residents of this country across regions, languages, cultures and generations in relation to one of the central dimensions of our collective value system: education. Our interest in national perspectives comes from our belief that the learning progress of some depends largely on the progress of all: this country needs a national learning framework in order for its regions, provinces and territories to succeed. From our study of pan-Canadian issues will emerge the national solutions that are fundamental to a distinctive Canadian society.
Certainly, as we speak of the value of lifelong learning, adult learning is an evident theme for CCL to pursue. In today’s knowledge-based economy and society, Canadians cannot afford to stop learning once they leave the formal education system. And when I say that they can’t afford to stop learning, I don’t mean only in the financial sense – ongoing learning enriches all aspects of an individual’s life. To quote Jacques Delors, who headed UNESCO’s International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century: “the aim of development is the complete fulfilment of man – as individual, member of a family and of a community, citizen and producer, inventor of techniques and creative dreamer”. Ongoing learning contributes to a richer life.
Many people have asked why CCL is creating knowledge centres for both Adult Learning and Work and Learning, and the answer is that we are taking a much broader perspective on learning than simply its contribution to productivity. Certainly, there will be a strong link between the Adult Learning and Work and Learning Knowledge Centres, but our decision to create a separate Adult Learning Knowledge Centre reflects our belief that learning must be lifelong and life-wide. It is also based on a few simple realities.
First, as it names implies, the Work and Learning Knowledge Centre will focus primarily on learning in the workplace. However, many adults need to upgrade their skills simply to enter the workforce and others require new skills as they move from one career to another. The Adult Learning Knowledge Centre will examine how best to support these individuals.
Second, not all learning is focussed on productivity. The ongoing pursuit of learning – whether it be cabinet-making, music, art or computer skills – contributes to our personal well-being and happiness.
Third, learning does not end when an individual retires and leaves the workplace - encouraging seniors to pursue learning opportunities helps to keep them mentally agile and involved in the community. These aspects of learning are important to quality of life and we felt that a separate Adult Learning Knowledge Centre was essential to ensure that they were addressed.
Another challenge facing adult learning is that it is a bit of an orphan – it has no clear “home” in the Canadian policy landscape. In a 2002 Review of Adult Learning in Canada, the OECD stated that there is a significant lack of coordination of adult learning in Canada, at many levels: between federal and provincial governments; between the public and private sectors; in the provision of information to learners; and in the absence of a national forum for adult education.
The OECD pointed to a need for pan-Canadian coordination and coherency of policy and practice. I am confident that the Adult Learning Knowledge Centre will contribute to fulfilling that need. The comprehensive membership of the consortium, which includes representation from provincial governments in Atlantic Canada, representation from the private sector, from educational institutions and NGOs, marks an important step toward bridging the gaps identified by the OECD.
Today is the exhilarating day when we can say that we at last have the means at our disposal actually to do something about all that – and to do it in ways which will bring us all into close and fruitful working relationships.
To create this Knowledge Centre, CCL initiated a process that called for the formation of a consortium of interested partners. We chose Atlantic Canada in order to build on the strong base of practitioners, researchers and activists here who support the health-education interface. Although led by Atlantic Canada, the Centre will serve as a national resource, linking practitioners, researchers, and organizations right across the country.
I am delighted by the high calibre and dedication of the consortium members that have come together under the leadership of Judith Potter Hall at the University of New Brunswick’s College of Extended Learning. And congratulations are also due to Doug Myers and his team at the Prior Learning Assessment Centre, who set the stage for a collaborative response by putting together a superb development conference for CCL on the theme of adult learning in April of this year.
The 32-member consortium represents a wide cross-section of researchers, educators and practitioners in the field of adult learning, with expertise across the full spectrum of activities from prior learning assessment to literacy.
I again want to underline how impressed I have been from the very beginning with the collegial, effective and determined network that evolved in Atlantic Canada to bring forward the successful proposal for the Adult Learning Knowledge Centre. It has been a model for all of Canada.
And what a wonderful model it is – and what an engaged, talented and diverse group you are, who have assembled to celebrate this moment with us. It is you and your colleagues from across the land who will provide the pan-Canadian leadership required to make the CCL’s Adult Learning Knowledge Centre the indisputable national network of reference that is so badly needed.
As I cast my eye across the room, I can identify leaders from community colleges and from universities, from non-profit organizations and from aboriginal groups, from all parts of Atlantic Canada, all dedicated to enabling adults to enrich their lives through learning.
Collectively, you represent precisely that scope and breadth, that expertise and commitment which we dared hope to be able to bring to coalescence in all five Knowledge Centres, and that I believe will have such a profound impact on social policy and practice in this country.
The consortium has no shortage of challenges to address – the wide range of barriers to adult learning; the low level of adult literacy, and the ongoing decline in literacy rates as Canadians age, to name only a few. I am looking forward to an exciting and productive relationship with Judith Potter and the consortium members.
I would now like to turn the podium over to Dr. John McLaughlin, President, University of New Brunswick, which, I am pleased officially to announce, has been the lead organization for the Adult Learning Knowledge Centre.
Top