The Council for Lifelong Learning wants to make sure opportunities are available to those who want it. Encouraging learning later in life can mean removing barriers to encourage people to keep at it. Things like program costs, the availability of childcare or transportation can be a major hurdle.
Council Chair, David Olinger, says offering different learning styles means people can find a way that works for them.
“We found that a lot of people like to have face to face for low level learning and a lot of people preferred online because then they could do that for specific training.”
One of the other mains goals of the council is to find ways for community organizations to work together.
“What we want to do is make sure that when we’re providing literacy and adult learning programs that we’re not doing something the public library is doing or classes that other agencies may be doing,” Olinger explains.
Many of the people served by these programs did not complete high school or are newcomers to Canada.