Training stuck in neutral?

Switch gears with NO COST Workplace Essential Skills consulting.

Until June 1st, 2010 the TOWES Department at Bow Valley College is offering local area employers up to 28 days of no cost Essential Skills consulting services for their staff through the Essential Skills Workplace Services (ESWS) project funded by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC).

Essential Skills are the basic or foundational skills that people use at work and in daily life.  Some of the nine Essential Skills are:

• Reading text                         • Numeracy

• Using documents                 • Oral communication

Essential Skills are used in some way in every occupation. Adequate levels of Essential Skills enable workers to learn new technical skills, adapt to workplace change or new processes and lead to increased safety and productivity in the workplace.

Let the TOWES department at Bow Valley College use its expertise in Essential Skills to help your business complete a customized Essential Skills Integration through services such as awareness sessions, needs assessment and analysis, training action planning , HR or Leadership consultations and more.

Contact the TOWES department today at 403-410-3200 or email us at towes@bowvalleycollege.ca for more information.

*This opportunity is only available to employers in Alberta…Not from Alberta? Stay tuned to the TOWES Times for upcoming Essential Skills opportunities.

TOWES has been working in a partnership with the Canadian Virtual College Consortium (CVCC) and Fanshawe College to develop and test our new online training tool: Essential Skills Direct.

The ESD field test is currently underway; for more information on what our partners are contributing to this project check out CVCC’s project website.  Here you will learn about how Fanshawe College is using a new technological and human interactive approach to help vunerable learners to over come learning barriers. Fanshawe’s  ‘Distance Education Assistive Bundle’ will be tested by some of the participating field-test learners as they work their way through ESD.

To learn more about this project, contact us, visit the CVCC website, or follow the TOWES Times for updates.

The TOWES website will soon be unveiling a new look.

The TOWES team has been working hard to not only improve the look of our website – but enhance the user experience.

Check out this Sneak Peek of the new TOWES.com:

sneak peek of the NEW TOWES.com

See anything you like?

What improvements would you like to see?

Looking for an Essential Skills Assessment related to your industry?

Take a look at the TOWES Sector Series Assessments which target the following sectors:

• Manufacturing
• Office and Administration
• Aerospace
• Health Care
• Entrance into Apprenticeship.

These tests were developed using extensive research on the Reading Text, Document Use and Numeracy requirements of the occupations in the above industries. Each test targets the Essential Skills levels required by those occupations, and the documents used in the problem sets have been selected from the industry. The Sector Series assessments help show employers, sector councils, training departments and test takers how TOWES is relevant to their industry. As with any TOWES test, the test taker does not need any specific background knowledge of the sector to complete the assessment. The sector series assessment is a great option to keep in mind for clients with a career goal.

Also, don’t forget about the TOWES General Series assessments. The “G-Series” are by far our most popular assessments, and prove to be a great option for use in situations where clients may not have a career choice in mind, and is also good for testing large groups of varying ability.

Do you have questions about using TOWES to assess Essential Skills? Contact Us.