Upgrading Literacy for Aboriginal Workers, The North West Company

Main Objective

Main objective of the program was to give aboriginal workers customized literacy training that was culturally relevant.

The training was crucial because they wanted to promote supervisors and managers from the local aboriginal community since non-aboriginal 'outsiders' would not stay long enough.

The program was more successful than previous programs because the developers from the beginning were aware of the relative failure of earlier programs that were too 'mainstream'. They customized to overcome the problems. Key customization included instruction in aboriginal languages, special trainers with expertise in training people in written English who come from oral cultures.

One key lesson from this program is that failure can be turned to success for the same group with focused design based on clear grasp of the groups needs and abilities, and what program elements are absolutely required for success.

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