What is TOWES
Across Canada, employers, educators, labour organizations and
governments are working together to ensure that Canadians have the
Essential Skills needed for full participation in home and
community life.
TOWES - the Test Of Workplace
Essential Skills offers valid, reliable and effective assessments,
curriculum and training support for organizations and individuals
looking to assess and improve Essential Skills.
What are Essential Skills
Essential Skills are the
skills needed to carry out everyday tasks for work, learning and
life. They are not the technical skills required by a particular
job; they are the skills applied in all occupations.
Essential
Skills:
• help us to perform the
tasks required by our occupation and other activities of daily
life.
• provide us with a
foundation to learn other skills.
• enhance our ability to
adapt to change.
There are 9 Essential Skills:
Reading Text, Document Use, Numeracy,
Writing, Thinking Skills, Oral Communication, Continuous Learning,
Working With Others, and Computer Use. TOWES assesses the first
three skills, which are often referred to as adult literacy
skills.
Using TOWES
TOWES assessments and
training solutions have a broad range of applications,
including:
• assessing workers and
potential workers for recruitment, selection and succession
planning.
• understanding individual
strengths for career planning.
• workplace-based
Essential Skills training programs.
• placement, measuring
learning gains and determining work readiness in college or
institutional training programs.
• identifying and
providing remedial support for at-risk learners in Apprenticeship
or
technical training.
• prior learning
recognition.
• an alternative literacy
assessment for new Canadians.
• establishing training
standards.
• research.
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