Budget season is upon us and Finance Ministers at both the federal and provincial levels are looking at a wide range of program and funding options. If these Ministers did some careful analysis, they would find public dollars directed at programs that increase essential skills like literacy and English Language Training (ELT) have tremendous benefits not only for individuals, but also for the public treasury that fund these programs in the first place.

Detailing some of these benefits was the focal point of a forum organized by FPSE on January 27, 2008 in Burnaby. Scott Murray, an international post-secondary education policy analyst, was the featured speaker at the event, and it's his research that shows just how significant those benefits can be. According to Murray's analysis, public investments in essential skills development like improving literacy levels and enhancing English language skills provide governments with rates of return averaging about 12 percent and payback periods of about eight years.

According to Murray, the benefits of these programs come from the increases that these essential skills provide to an individual's lifetime earnings. Moving an individual from Level 1 to Level 2 in their core literacy skills, for example, can result in a one-third increase in that individual's annual income. Not only do these essential skills help someone move to higher skilled and better paid positions, they also increase an individual's overall mobility in the labour force, a factor which is enormously positive for an individual's lifetime earnings.

Much of Murray's analysis is well known within the post-secondary education sector. However, if we want to push governments to make these new investments, we need to share this important research with more than ourselves. And that was one of the main motivations behind the January 27 event. We brought together a broad cross-section of community leaders to begin building alliances with partners who share our view that post-secondary education is critical to BC's economic and social success.

The forum brought together the leaders of BC's largest labour organizations including the BC Federation of Labour, the BC Government and Services Employees' Union and the BC Teachers' Federation. The event also included representatives from key Chinese-speaking advocacy organizations, the Canadian Federation of Students, Literacy BC, and Lower Mainland MLAs.

In addition to pushing governments' fiscal priorities, the event provided FPSE with an opportunity to build support for lobbying both federal and provincial governments as they renew a number of federal-provincial agreements. For example, within the next three months BC and the federal government are set to renew a labour market agreement that will detail the funding and standards for a number of programs connected to adult literacy. Within the next 12 months the two governments will also renegotiate an agreement detailing the level of funding and access for English Language Training. Both agreements have a direct impact on BC's public post-secondary education system. However, to date, the renewal process has not been open to much input from the post-secondary educators who ultimately have the responsibility to deliver these programs.

Our forum was the first step towards making that kind of input possible. We believe that by broadening the base of community support for post-secondary education, we are in a much better position to influence the decisions made by governments in areas that are critical to our members.