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Countdown: Adult numeracy developments in two key standards frameworks

Revisions to key adult language, literacy and numeracy standards frameworks have been released this year, and ACER’s Dave Tout played a key role in both of them. Here, he explains numeracy developments in the Australian Core Skills Framework and Victoria’s Certificates in General Education for Adults.

The latest edition of the Australian Core Skills Framework (ACSF) was released by the Commonwealth Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) this year. The 2012 ACSF revision, funded by DEEWR, was undertaken by a team of consultants led by Philippa McLean. The plan was to field test the 2008 ACSF, which has been in use in draft form for about three years, and revise it in light of user feedback.

One key change to the 2012 ACSF is the addition of a new level. The team received significant feedback from ACSF users and potential users about the need for descriptors of a lower level ACSF performance, since there are a number of adults in Australia who are unable to demonstrate performance at the current exit level 1 of the ACSF. This informed our development of a new lower Pre Level 1 Supplement. Although performance at Pre Level 1 is extremely limited, it is nonetheless possible to identify skills and progress at this level and to assess performance. As a result the new ACSF includes the Pre Level 1 Supplement encompassing a set of Performance Features and Sample Activities for each of the five ACSF core skills.

The 2012 ACSF therefore describes six levels of performance in the five core skills of:

• learning

• reading

• writing

• oral communication and

• numeracy.

The numeracy core skill was more extensively revised than the other core skills, with new Focus Areas developed for all three numeracy Indicators, and with Performance Features clearly aligned to each Focus Area.

Victoria’s Certificates in General Education for Adults (CGEA), which are also extensively used elsewhere in Australia, include numeracy and mathematics units across five levels ranging from an Initial Level Course, through to Certificates at Levels I, II and III of the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF). The 2011 revision, funded through a contract with the General Studies and Further Education Curriculum Maintenance Manager (CMM) at Victoria University, addressed feedback from key CGEA numeracy personnel and from public consultations with providers on necessary changes to the numeracy and mathematics units, including making more explicit the role that number plays in the numeracy and mathematics units, and using the revised ACSF numeracy core skills documentation to review the existing CGEA descriptions.

It’s been effective to undertake the two revisions at roughly the same time. The ACSF was a useful tool to assist in reviewing the balance across the five levels of the CGEA and to help guarantee a more even spread of mathematical knowledge and skills. Equally, writing the detailed and structured curriculum descriptions of the CGEA led to some refinements to the ACSF numeracy descriptions.

ACER’s work on national and state numeracy standards frameworks supports the teaching and learning of numeracy and mathematics. Both the ACSF and the CGEA are structured around a view of numeracy as a vehicle for giving meaning to mathematics, and that values mathematics as a critical tool to be learned and productively used.

The ACSF is now available from the DEEWR website.

The CGEA is available through the Training Support Network (TSN) website.

Dave Tout is a Senior Research Fellow in the Assessment and Reporting: Mathematics and Science program in ACER’s Educational Monitoring and Research Division.

Photo by Vedran Jukic courtesy of stock.xchng

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