Welcome to the fourth edition of the TOWES TIMES

The dog days of late Summer are winding down, the nights are getting chilly out here in the high country, and our College partners and business customers are gathering their staff back together after the Summer holiday season – it’s  the perfect time to publish our fourth edition of the TOWES Times.

Over the last couple of years, the TOWES Department has been expanded to include 3 career development programs that we deliver on contract for the Province of Alberta’s Ministry of Employment and Immigration. One is named Career Connection which provides career and employment services for unemployed Albertans including such services as résumé writing, labour market information, interview techniques, and computer software seminars. This Spring, the College was contracted to deliver this same set of services in French for francophone Albertans in a newly developed service that is called Connexion Carrière. This year, we will include TOWES testing in both French and English and provide access to the newly developed online preparation course (Essential Skills Online) and use the two products to assist our clients in making an informed career choice.

The third career development program that is delivered out of the TOWES Department is called Directions for Immigrants. Directions focuses its career development services on highly educated immigrants and provides assistance in credential recognition, job search, job placement, and study groups to prepare for accreditation examinations. This past Winter, the Directions program received a further investment from the Province of Alberta to enhance its service to include Internationally Educated Health Care Professionals.

Highly educated, highly skilled immigrants are an important solution to the supply of labour in Canada. However, many of these talented individuals require workplace language and communication training in order to successfully enter into the Canadian workplace. Our experience in using TOWES with highly educated immigrants is that they typically do not score as high as their education would suggest – a finding that is consistent with the International Literacy and Life Skills Survey. This is understandable as immigrants have developed their essential skills in another language. We developed Essential Skills Online as a tool that assists immigrants to improve their essential skills. Now with the assistance of the Province of Alberta, TOWES is developing a new version which will use workplace documents from the health care sector. We will also be adding an oral communications component which should assist internationally educated health care providers to develop the skills they need to enter into the health care sector in Canada. Health care is a new area of focus for TOWES and we are excited about the possibility of developing products and services for use in this sector.

Also in this edition are articles on a new online test administration certification  program that we will be piloting this Fall, the rollout of the new Essential Skills Online TOWES prep course and some information on our 4th annual TOWES Distributors Conference to held November 3, 4 and 5 in Ottawa. This year a third day will be added focusing on teaching essential skills.

So welcome back from the Summer and enjoy the newsletter.

Conrad Murphy, Director of the TOWES Department