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Near the conclusion of a long day in clinic some years ago, I receive in my medical office an elderly gentleman who informs me that he had spent a night the previous week in hospital. He had misinterpreted instructions on the pharmaceuticals he was taking and had accidentally overdosed.
“But”, I observe, “you have been on this kind of medication for years”. “Yes” he replies, “but I never quite understood the difference between the strong pills and the others. The pharmacist did not explain it to me this time”.
A banal and daily occurrence in cities and villages across the land? An example among many illustrative of the need to improve health literacy as one of the three imperatives in modernising the Canadian health care system? Of course, the anecdote is an exemplar of these things, and of the necessity to maintain the kinds of vibrant connections between health practitioners and promoters on the one hand and educators on the other. You may also observe from this example why I was so very keen that support for a knowledge network linking health and learning should be a central achievement of CCL’s first five-year cycle.
I wish to seize this occasion to salute you and your colleagues across Canada who have built—through your passion, commitment and knowledge—the powerful health and learning network that has been represented by the Health and Learning Knowledge Centre.
But – if we think of the obverse of this small event, if we think about the encouraging number of people whose lives have been changed by educational experience later in life, after their initial schooling, then we appreciate the transformative power of learning.
I am asked today to discuss important roles of formal and informal education in turbulent economic times. I will do so shortly. And yet, I must first remind us not only that all epochs are turbulent, but also that the fundamental thrust of a learning culture in the modern world is equally and fundamentally applicable no matter what economic conditions prevail at any particular juncture. The case of the elderly patient who overdosed because of a dependence on the pharmacist to interpret health-related information can occur at any moment.
On November 14, 2008, I published on the CCL website a short commentary entitled “The Role of CCL in a Period of Economic Challenges”, in which I hoped in part to set the stage for renewal of governmental resourcing for continuation of the unique function of CCL in support of a distinctively Canadian learning culture—a moment at which swine flu had not yet made its appearance. I wrote:
“The world is in transition in so many ways, and the rate of change may appear forbidding to many of us. But one of the welcome challenges is the growing shift from carbon energy to human energy. CCL’s work responds to the need for effective development of our country’s people—whether Canadian-born or recently arrived in this country.
CCL provides evidence for informed decisions by learners and potential learners, by educators and employers and by governments. Its contributions extend far beyond the short term, to build a long-term, sustainable advantage for our country.
My studies in medicine, with specialisation in Community Health and Epidemiology, instilled in me an abiding interest in the history of disease and of humankind’s attempts to avert or control illness. The influenza pandemic of 1918-19 claimed the lives of tens of millions of people around the world. At that time few resources were available to investigate the dynamics of how disease spread and how to diminish transmission of disease. Had countries had greater resources and a greater capacity to organise a response, the outcomes would have been far less devastating. Think back to the SARS crisis in 2003, which commanded investment of considerable resources in a short timeframe to prevent widespread transmission in Canada.
Our society makes valiant efforts to understand the origin of both transmissible and chronic diseases. We invest in agencies such as the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) which gathers information about health-care services and overall population health. Why? Because evidence is the key to understanding.
Understanding is fundamental to tracking and controlling. And evidence and understanding are the scales on which different and opposing results hang in the balance.
Today, not to invest in generating such evidence and understanding is unthinkable, even in times of financial stringency: the stakes are too high. And we have seen that in the unusually non-partisan concurrence of all political parties in dealing with the outbreak of swine flu.
Learning and health care differ in many respects, but they are equally significant to the destiny of societies. In each case, pivotal to progress and successful outcomes is the availability of adequate information and independent analysis—through evidence. This is the reason why Canada cannot afford NOT to continue its investment in lifelong learning through CCL.
In challenging economic times, CCL is part of the solution. Investment in human capital will distinguish successful societies from their competitors. Those economies that are supported by powerful learning systems will perform best in good times and in bad. CCL represents a principal means for Canada to measure its progress in learning, and based on that evidence, take the short- and long-term steps that will sustain our economic growth and our social fabric”.
In truth, I must affirm today: whether it be CCL or some other entity, the remit of an organisation like the Council is required in heady economic times as in tumultuous ones. That mandate implies a unique function for monitoring and reporting, for research and knowledge mobilisation and for capacity building.
Through the function of statistical monitoring and analysis of Canadian progress in learning across the life cycle, Canadians have come to know CCL quite well. Our reports on national postsecondary education, on early childhood learning and development, on adult literacy and learning, on the Composite Learning Index, together with a host of other reviews, CCL provides an understanding of strengths and weaknesses of the country as a whole, relative to other countries and to changes over time. The focus is national; we feel no need to draw comparisons across educational institutions or contrast performances of various provinces and territories. CCL is concerned with pan-Canadian evolution.
Through its mission in research and knowledge mobilisation, CCL grapples with salient learning issues that may impact policy. By policy we do not mean only, or even especially governments. Parents make policy. Employees, unions and many others make policy. The thrust of our contribution in research and KM is to examine practices and approaches in all phases of learning from early childhood through schools, workplace and beyond, to attempt to determine those that evidence seems to indicate create optimal conditions for success. What works, and why?
Capacity building is understood as the process of utilising data, analysis and research on learning in a practical, direct human context. It is the use to which all this intellectual labour is put. It is the process of understanding a national learning trust as social movement, and not just the outpouring of a think-tank. Surely, the achievement of the Health and Learning Knowledge Centre far stood as an exemplar of such capacity building.
Twinned to the unique functions of CCL is the philosophical or conceptual foundation underpinning all of its work.
One aspect of that basis emerges from my characterisation of the M and R function: we believe that it is through national information and analysis on learning that Canada will set optimal conditions for improved learning throughout the country. Pan-Canadian coherence in policy and cooperation and action will be driven by establishing national means of analysis. And this is true independent of legal and constitutional structures, if we can agree on benchmarks of progress and set goals for the future on a national basis – as do all other developed countries.
On our ability to act coherently and cohesively in learning on a national basis depends our likelihood of succeeding as a prosperous and vibrant society. Lots of folk confuse destiny with bad management. It is bad management not to construct the coherent pan-Canadian learning architecture that would assist societal success.
The second dimension core to the CCL approach is to consider learning in its broadest outline. It is much more than what occurs in any classroom. We endorse the international appreciation of learning as described in UNESCO’s landmark report on Education as it comprises learning to know (formal education), learning to do (skills acquisition), learning to be (individual and personal development) and learning to live together (setting optimal community conditions for learning). It is this integrated approach to understanding a basic human need and driver that infuses and informs our Composite Learning Index, an index that enables Canadians in every community throughout the country to apprise themselves of the numerical levels of learning conditions in their region. That this CLI tool—originating in Canada but internationally inspired—is now being exported to Europe through CCL partnerships with European foundations is testament to the universal resonance and applicability of this wider concept of learning.
A distinct challenge presented itself at the inception of CCL as the first national independent organisation with a remit as described; the needs and expectations— given the enormous gaps on pan-Canadian learning information—have been as huge as those lacunae. Consequently, CCL’s audience is vast in scope, responding to needs from government policy makers to persons at the bus stop whose interest is in making best decisions for their children’s schooling. Between the extremes of societal audiences at one end and individuals in the other lie most of our partners; they are labour unions, business groups, municipalities, civic groups, aboriginal organisations, educational institutions and groupings and NGOs of many types.
CCL’s goal in bridging policy concerns to issues in individual’s daily lives has been to relate the two, so that an understanding develops about how policy will affect individuals and groups. But we also attempt very consciously to strike a balance in our efforts between providing the analysis that policy makers require for informed decisions and providing the tools that communities and individuals can use in improving their own learning through their own efforts. Much of our monitoring and reporting and some of our research support policy. The series of tools boxes for individuals and communities now emerging from CCL includes:
The argument for emphasis on learning and on the role in support of it that we all can play scintillates even more during tumultuous economic times.
The road to economic recovery is not just about filling potholes and repairing bridges. It must include a plan for skills infrastructure as well.
Human infrastructure will help us both to respond to immediate crisis and to ensure sustainable growth—the conditions for future success.
That is how you build a resilient workforce: the ability to anticipate change and adapt to the new economic context.
We characterise human infrastructure in relation to learning as not an afterthought when all other necessary investments have been made. In both the short- and the long-term, learning creates the skilled workforce needed for the country’s prosperity.
In a time of heightened pressure on government purse strings, it reduces burdens on the health care system through improved health literacy, reduces crime rates and stimulates economic growth through increased productivity and innovation. As an example, adult literacy affects GDP more than most other investments. Research indicates that a 1% rise in literacy produces a 1.5% increase in GDP per capita and a 2.5% improvement in labour productivity.
When we emerge from this downturn, we will have even more pronounced shortages of critical skills: engineering, health professions, skilled trades, high tech—unless we use the period that this reduced economic pace now affords us.
In this country there is a gap between skills and jobs: we cannot have jobs without people and people without jobs.
Human and learning infrastructure and architecture is not just or even about spending more money. It is about spending smarter: we require sets of clear, shared and agreed indicators and measures to allow for continuous national assessment of progress and performance towards accepted goals.
The European Union furnishes an example of that which we must achieve in Canada. Sixteen indicators on education and training agreed and common to member countries include: ICT skills, language skills, mobility of students across the EU, adult skills, investment in education and training, number of graduates from higher education; proportion of GDP expended on research and innovation.
Benchmarks and targets are also held in common across Europe and are measured and reported publicly both for the EU as a whole and for each member country. For example: targeting for 2010 a 15% increase in the number of tertiary graduates in mathematics, science and technology; or 12.5% adult participation rate in lifelong learning programs.
Not all EU goals will be achieved, either for the Union as a whole or for the country. However, it is the very process of establishing targets and reporting transparently on them that will drive Europe forward in their building of human infrastructure.
What could Canada accomplish immediately to improve our human infrastructure?
In a knowledge society, knowing how to learn is perhaps the quintessential skill. The aspiration is that we can assist in creating those optimal learning conditions.
Our voice, our contribution nationally, is only a modest constituent part of what we hope will be a growing harmony of efforts to move up the Canadian learning curve.
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