Tax Office – Digital inclusion guide

Every interaction matters

The ATO has the goal to deliver digital services that meet the needs of everyone in Australia.

This guide explains the:

• diversity of the Australian community
• complexity of how we connect in a digital world
• importance of accessibility
• value of inclusion.

The Digital inclusion guide is also available in Portable Document Format (PDF) – ATO Digital inclusion guide (PDF, 3.489KB) This link will download a file.

New Adult Literacy and Numeracy Reform in Victoria

ACAL welcomes the commitment to adult literacy and numeracy from the Victorian government in the Adult Community Education sector in the form a new reform agenda. ACAL welcomes the commitment to adult literacy and numeracy from the Victorian government in the Adult Community Education sector in the form a new reform agenda. Responding to PIAAC data that estimated Victoria has 650,000 adults at the lowest levels of literacy, the Further Opportunities for Adult Learners (FOAL) project was conducted in 2018.

This project informed the need for a Ministerial Statement that would support the sector to ensure all Victorians, particularly those at risk, had access to further training, securing meaningful employment, and to full economic and social participation in their lives.

Low English literacy in Australian Aboriginal communities

The latest paper from our Australian Research Council-funded examination of the Literacy for Life Foundation Aboriginal adult literacy campaign, ‘Quantifying low English literacy in Australian Aboriginal communities: a correlational study’ is being published online in ‘The Australian Educational Researcher’.

While the English literacy outcomes of Aboriginal children are constantly measured and debated, attention falls away once they leave school, leading to limited data on English literacy rates among Australia’s Aboriginal adults. This paper reports on an investigation into the prevalence of low literacy in adults in eight Aboriginal communities in NSW, Australia, drawing on both self-report data from household surveys and objective professional assessments using the Australian Core Skills Framework (ACSF).

2020 ACAL Conference

The ACAL 2020 national conference organising committee has observed the cancellation of numerous gatherings around the world, as well as locally, due to concerns about the health impacts of CoVID-19 and have carefully reviewed ACAL’s own situation.

As a result we have determined that there WILL NOT be a national conference held this year.  It will be only the second time in ACAL’s 44-year history that this has occurred – the last being in 1993. Our decision-making has, of necessity, been guided by prioritising everyone’s health and well-being.

We are aware of the value placed on the annual conference by delegates and ask for your understanding at this time. While the current situation makes it impossible to have certainty that we would be able  to provide a truly safe environment this year, we look forward with anticipation to the 2021 event.

Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash

‘Plan a project’ webinar

with Lidia Lipkiewicz, winner of the Australian Training Award in Excellence in Language, Literacy, Numeracy Practice (2018)

Presented at the AGM, October 2019

‘Plan a project’ is a weekly, project-based program that develops language, literacy and numeracy skills as well as employability skills.