Canadian Council on Learning | Conseil Canadien sur l'Apprentissage

Post-secondary Education in Canada: Strategies for Success

2007 Report

Summary: Part I  Chapter 7 

Lifelong learning

The rapidly evolving nature of employment has brought the imperatives of lifelong learning to the forefront. Today’s knowledge-based economy requires working Canadians to renew and acquire skills on a continuous basis. However, the traditional PSE sector is not designed to respond to this new reality.

The OECD has reported that a lack of pan-Canadian coherence in delivering adult learning and training hampers the availability of lifelong learning opportunities. This fragmented approach means Canadians lack the information required to take up such opportunities.

In fact, this report has no new data available to update the indicators for lifelong learning.

However, CCL published a number of reports in 2007 that shed light on the learning challenges confronting adult Canadians (including State of Learning in Canada: No Time for Complacency and Unlocking Canada’s Potential: The State of Workplace and Adult Learning in Canada).

The following list provides a sense of the significance of the challenges:

• More than four in 10 working-age Canadians cannot read, write, do arithmetic or solve problems at the level required to participate fully in today’s economy.
• Canada’s overall rate of literacy did not improve between 1994 and 2003, and the proportion of Canadians with high levels of literacy declined slightly.
• Most learning by adults takes place on the job, yet two-thirds of Canadians do not take part in any formal work-related learning activities.
• Barriers that prevent Canadian workers from participating in learning and training include a lack of resources devoted to training by businesses, labour and government, as well as individual attitudes.
• 1.5 million Canadians report having unmet learning and training needs. Canadian firms invest less in workplace training than those in most industrialized countries.

Figure 7.7.1  Reasons for having unmet training needs/wants, participants and non-participants, Canada, 2002

Data source: Table D2.6.
Figure source: Education Indicators in Canada: Report of the Pan-Canadian Education Indicators Program. Council of Ministers of Education, Canada and Statistics Canada: Canadian Education Statistics Council, Catalogue No 81-582-XIE, (Ottawa: 2006).