ONLY Six Ways?

From Kimeiko Hotta Dover,
Your Guide to Adult / Continuing Education.

Six Smart Ways to Improve Adult Education

In the study, New Skills for a New Economy:
Adult Education's Key Role in Sustaining Economic Growth and Expanding Opportunity, MassInc offers six suggestions for improving adult education to alleviate Massachusetts' basic work skills deficiency. Adult education programs everywhere can benefit from these suggestions:

1. Offer weekend classes- while a significant number of Adult Basic Education (ABE) class registrants indicate a preference for studying on Saturdays, less than two percent of ABE classes are currently offered on that day. There are no classes offered on Sundays, and registrants are not asked whether they would like to study on Sundays.

2.
Retain experienced full-time teachers - although full-time teachers are signficant determiners of program quality, just over one-third of Massachusetts' ABE teachers work full-time. Attrition in ABE is high - almost three-quarters of the ABE teachers have been with their programs for less than three years.

3. Technology and distance learning - increase the availability of these flexible learning options.

4. Funding - most ABE funds are presently granted to community-based private providers who arrange classrooms and hiring on a class-by-class basis. MassINC argues that this arrangement makes the system more fragile than if the funds were directed at institutions with permanent staff and infrastructures.

5. Intensity of instruction - short, intensive classes appear to yield better results than brief periods of instruction conducted over a long period of time.

6. Link ABE to the workplace - offer classes in workplaces, with employers paying employees to attend at least half of the class.