Why generic skills?
For several years, the RESDAC has been promoting an integrated approach to skills development. The many and complex needs of adults with low literacy skills must be answered through many and complex ways; people need to work, they have family responsibilities, they often wish to be in harmony with their community, and to fulfill their role as citizen, etc.
For this reason, several types of skills need to be developed: generic skills as well as essential literacy skills, and technical or specialized skills.
Generic skills are basic skills that promote social engagement, family and professional individuals.
Some key elements to discover and use generic skills
Frameworks and definitions
You can read the three frameworks which we specifically produced for official language minority communities in Canada. These frameworks were designed from Nos compétences fortes de l’ICÉA, a complete, 22-skill framework (PDF).
Two approaches to explore generic skills
Use Nos compétences fortes by ICÉA to :
- identify your generic skills in a formal or informal learning group
- recognize strong generic skills in the other members of the group
- identify the situations in which generic skills show
Use ESAT (Employability Skills Assessment Tool) to :
- identify your generic skills in a formal training context
- identify your generic skills in view of returning to work
- assess your generic skills as regards employers’ needs
- develop your generic skills
