Case Study - Industry Education Services

I am the Project Coordinator for the WELL Program at P.B Foods in Brunswick, WA. The program is in its third year. Our program consists of Oral & Written Communications, Business Communications including Negotiation Skills, Numeracy and this year we are offering Computer Skills. As well as the Language, Literacy & Numeracy mentioned, our program has also included several core modules of the Food Processing Certificate.

I have primarily used the NRS as a mapping tool. The curriculum framework that we used was the Certificate of General Education for Adults (CGEA). As a translation statement already exists for mapping the CGEA against the NRS, finding the Indicator of Competence was easy. But I also found it reassuring to check my levels against the NRS. It was really easy to compare similar indicators, lower and higher, to be sure I was on the right level. I then went through the Sample Activities to find which Aspect of Communication they aligned with.

We were very ably in-serviced by our coordinator. But I also learnt a lot by using the document when aligning the Indicators of Competence with the Aspects of Communication of a specific task.

One of the benefits of the NRS that I found was when I used it as a resource to supplement the competency-based CGEA. The Sample Activities are very specific about what is required for a student to achieve success and there is a broad range of tasks included. The NRS is also useful for identifying language & literacy needs and designing a program to meet those needs. It is also useful for judging the level of difficulty of language in specific vocational tasks eg Reading a Material Safety Data Sheet.

I think the physical layout of the NRS could be improved. It takes up a lot of room when open and I think it is cumbersome opening and closing flaps. I think a more conventional layout would be better, with lots of tabs to expedite the location of the various sections.