By Diane Hill, Community Ed Notes

Have you heard the term &8220;basic skills&8221;?

Why would you care?

You may care because you are one of the following:

&169; An employer who recognizes that workers are ill prepared for what their job has become. According to National Association of Manufacturers report:

– 32.4 percent have poor reading and writing skills

– 26.2 percent have inadequate math skills

– 59.1 percent have poor basic employability skills (attendance, timeliness, work ethic, etc.)

&169; Planning to go to college in the fall and not sure you can pass the entrance exam because you&8217;re lower than you&8217;d like to be in writing or math skills.

Action to take? Brush up those skills.

Here are some options.

&169; Invite Adult Basic Education to the job site to provide job-specific basic skills for workers. Your space, your choice of time, your decision about exactly what skills need to be honed.

&169; Enroll for Basic Skills Brush Up. Attend Adult Basic Education at Brookside Education Center – Albert Lea Community Education or the site closest in your community.

According to Louis Soares, executive director of the National Work Readiness Credential, new workers in entry level jobs need to be proficient in four basic skills: Communication Skills, Interpersonal Skills, Decision-Making Skills, and Lifelong Learning Skills in order to be of value to the company.

At his web site,

www.workreadiness.com, he explains how to assure that.

Entry-level jobs are defined as non-supervisory, non-managerial, non-professional positions.

These may be unskilled positions, or they may be skilled positions.

Soares is developing a process for credentialing the effectiveness of folks, so they can show they have skills that are universal, transferable, and meet a national standard for work readiness.

He also reports that many employers observe their supervisors and middle management folks as having a fertile gap in the area of these four basic skills.

Adult Basic Education and Family Literacy see themselves as being an important service provider for businesses and individuals, in order to brush up on basic skills.

What can you do?

Be ready.

Don&8217;t panic.

Call me at 379-4867 for further information.

Diane Hill is the coordinator for Adult Basic Education and Family Literacy.