12 • Institute for Work & Health (IWH)
Before redesigning a curriculum, consult the program instructors on the feasibility of the
changes being considered.
Quick Tip
Often several essential skills are involved in a single task. For example, the work involved
in rigging a load to be lifted by a crane on a construction site may require these essential
skills: reading (of labels on equipment), document use (to refer to regulations), numeracy (to
calculate if a load is safe to lift), thinking/problem-solving, oral communication, and working
with others. However, it would be too much to address all these essential skills in a modified
training program.
In order to keep the curriculum streamlined, identify which essential skills are most critical to
safely doing the job(s) targeted by the training program, and focus the curriculum changes on
these skills. Key considerations include:
• the areas in which trainees are known or expected to have ES gaps,
• the nature of the occupation (as noted above, ESDC has developed essential skills
profiles for a wide range of occupations), and
• the practical needs of the job(s) that trainees do, such as the skills that they will be
able to apply on the job, and how gaps in essential skills will affect workers' abilities to
perform job tasks.
Identify the most important
essential skills gaps to address
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