Immigrant self-employment and entrepreneurship in the GTA: Literature, data, and program review

The Essential Adult Skills Initiative (EASI) is an ambitious, large-scale research project undertaken by HEQCO and 20 postsecondary partners, with funding provided by the federal and provincial governments. EASI was designed to measure the literacy, numeracy and problem-solving skills of incoming and graduating college and university students, and to evaluate the feasibility of administering assessments on a large scale in Ontario’s postsecondary sector. In this respect, EASI represents an important first step toward the measurement of learning gain — the degree to which students’ skills change over the course of their program of study — across multiple postsecondary institutions.EASI’s central research questions are as follows: 1. Is the Education and Skills Online assessment a suitable measure of postsecondary students’ literacy, numeracy and problem-solving skills? 2. Are there observable differences between incoming and graduating students’ literacy, numeracy and problem-solving skills? 3. What are the practical implications of implementing a project like EASI in a postsecondary institution? How feasible is it to scale up this project to a provincial or national level?