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Kia ora Tatau
Graeme Smith here from ALEC. I work in the least funny profession in the world.
This is the field of literacy and numeracy professional development. It’s a real conversation stopper at dinner parties.
Actually, I don’t get invited to many dinner parties…
- We have an education product. It’s not for everyone.
- In fact, it’s for a small niche in education.
- It’s a “train the trainer” course and qualification with a specific focus – we work with trades and vocational trainers.
- It’s a proven system, a toolbox of teaching tools if you like, for embedding literacy and numeracy.
We done this with the Military, the Police, the Department of Corrections, Polytechnics, Institutes of Technology, private training organisations, industry training organisations, companies like Downer NZ, and privately with individuals.
And we’ve done it in virtually every trade or context you can imagine.
Some quick background:
- Around half a million kiwis aged between 20 and 65 have no qualifications.
- Just over 300 000 of these are currently working.
- Most of them struggle with literacy and numeracy issues.
- Their social and economic progress is now a national priority… perhaps a national emergency.
Other countries have the same issues. And bigger numbers.
Here’s the opportunity:
- The Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) that funds tertiary education have a unique literacy and numeracy infrastructure that they have spent millions developing.
- They want to commercialise it.
- I think it has export potential.
- Our education product is the ideal vehicle to transmit their infrastructure.
We’re nearly ready…