Literacy Basics - Community Literacy of Ontario

MTCU Requirements on Exit

While the information regarding MTCU requirements was considered accurate at the time of writing, you should always contact your MTCU field consultant for the most recent information concerning this or any other function of service delivery. You can view the LBS guidelines online at http://www.ontla.on.ca/library/repository/mon/7000/10317306.pdf.

Literacy and Basic Skills agencies in Ontario are required by the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities to collect information that reflects each learner's status at exit and/or the reason for leaving. They are also required to conduct a learner satisfaction survey at exit.

The Learner Satisfaction Survey is part of the LBS Continuous Improvement Performance Management System (CIPMS). According to the accompanying instructions (MTCU, October 2004), LBS agencies must ask all learners who exit the program (except those who left after assessment) to complete the survey upon exit or as soon as possible after the exit. Based on their expertise and judgment, LBS agencies can decide whether to have learners complete the survey on their own or to have a staff person read and explain the survey to the learners. MTCU also suggests that agencies add questions to this survey that are specific to their needs to help them better assess specific aspects of their service that they wish to evaluate and improve upon.

The Learner Satisfaction Survey is brief and asks the learner to provide feedback as follows:

MTCU provides a pre-formatted Excel spreadsheet to LBS agencies to help them track responses to the survey. Agencies then submit the spreadsheet to MTCU by the end of October and April of each year.

Is your program experiencing difficulty in having all students complete the Learner Satisfaction Survey? In 2004, Community Literacy of Ontario asked community-based practitioners for effective strategies to help increase survey completion rate. Here are some of their suggestions:

• Enhance the learner orientation process to include an overview of the importance of the survey.
• Compile survey results to date and share them with current learners so they can see the results and know that their feedback is taken seriously.
• Clearly explain to students at intake the importance of the survey to the program, to the Ministry and potentially to future learners.
• Foster an environment where learners know that their feedback on the program is welcomed.
• Have the learner sign a contract that includes information stating that he/she will need to fill out a survey upon exit.
• Put copies of the survey in a holder mounted to the wall with a sign that says, "If you are thinking of quitting, please fill this out."
• Have blank surveys available in the common areas of your agency.
• Have a locked survey box for students to submit their surveys anonymously.
• Hold learner information sessions to explain the importance of the surveys and to talk about the survey results.

Status at Exit
MTCU requires all LBS agencies to record, for every learner, a "status at exit" statistic and a corresponding reason for leaving. According to Appendix 8 in the Literacy and Basic Skills Guidelines, this information will help "in measuring the effectiveness of the program in meeting the literacy needs of the learner".

The agency responsibilities for this activity are to:

• Ensure that only one status at exit and one reason for leaving is reported in the LBS-IMS for every student that exits the program
• Ensure that information collection and recording status at exist/reason for leaving is done in a convenient and effective manner
• Select the reason that appears first on the LBS-IMS list, if the learner has more than one status at exit or reason for leaving
• Establish and maintain a process for receiving ongoing feedback and information from other service providers in the community, from employers (where appropriate) and from learners.

The agency must record, as a total of the number of learners who left the agency, the number of learners who:

• Attained their LBS goal (not including those who left after assessment)
• Are currently employed
• Are in further education and training
• Are not possible to contact (reported as lost contact)

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