Charting a Course: Responding to the Industry-Related
Adult Basic Education Needs of the Texas Workforce
Handbook One: Planning and Implementation Tips
for Program Planners and Administrators

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Module One: Determining Program Capacity, Services, and Solutions

Getting Started …

On occasion, adult education programs commit to delivering work-related education before determining their capacity to deliver the services and solutions needed. Some assume that it is just a matter of transferring a traditional adult education class to the worksite, or adding a few work-related topics to already established classes. But adult education programs venturing into the workplace arena with insufficient resources (personnel, financial, and material) can jeopardize their credibility. Preparation helps us avoid potential pitfalls.

Module One starts with the first step in a four-step process: Know your adult education program, its capacity, and how to present it to business and industry. This first step requires a close look at your program’s capacity, its infrastructure, the level of administrative support for the program, and the resources at your disposal.

SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. A SWOT Analysis is often used to identify program strengths, weaknesses or areas needing improvement, opportunities for growth and development, and threats or challenges to program success. The objective is to assess your program’s infrastructure and capacity to successfully venture into workplace education.

Like any new adult education venture, a work-related ESOL initiative requires an honest evaluation of a program’s strengths and needs, along with the anticipation of both opportunities and obstacles likely to present themselves. It is a good idea to involve instructional staff in this activity to gain as many perspectives as possible and to build awareness of the programmatic goals of work-related instruction. The responses can then be used in developing marketing materials.

On the following page, questions are clustered in an effort to assist you in conducting your SWOT Analysis. Following the SWOT Analysis is a planning framework. As you determine what needs to be done in each phase of preparing to deliver workforce-related instruction, you can check off what’s already in place.

For those activities yet to be accomplished, you can use the last column to identify/ designate who or which partner will assist you or take primary responsibility for each activity. It is recommended that you include instructional staff in this process as well as in the SWOT Analysis. You then want to identify community partners and stakeholders who can help you meet your objectives.

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Note: You will find the terms workforce, workplace, work-based, and work-related used throughout this handbook.While there are variations in the meaning each compound word bears, in the context of this handbook, you will find them used interchangeably to refer to instruction that is related to the knowledge and skills adult need to succeed in the workplace. This universal definition applies to adult learners already enrolled in our adult education programs as well as those enrolled in programs sponsored by their employers or local workforce development partners. The goal: to help emerging, incumbent, and dislocated workers gain the knowledge and skills needed for successful employment.