Why this unit?

First, about 50% of Australian employees don’t have the full range of LLN skills they need to do their jobs:

• Some are learning English as a second language. Difficulties with English are often compounded by cultural adjustment and cultural misunderstandings.
• Many others find ways of avoiding LLN. For example, people with activist-relater learning styles normally want to communicate orally and avoid reading and writing as much as possible. Some people always "forget" their glasses and ask others to read it for them.
• A few have disabilities, and diagnosis requires specialist advice.

Second, you often can't circumvent LLN. For example, some students with very weak English had to learn how to use dangerous chemicals. The RTO trained them to use the colors of labels to identify the correct chemicals, but came unstuck when manufacturers changed their labels.

Third, admitting students who don’t have enough LLN skills for their courses creates difficulties for everybody.

• As an instructor, you'll regret it later on. Your group is harder to teach because students have widely varying ability levels, and you must give some students unreasonable amounts of extra help.
• As an assessor, you will be under pressure to spend lots of effort getting weak students over the line and to pass borderline students. The students generally do poorly anyway, and are more likely to either drop out or be assessed as Not yet competent for many units.
• Other students get reduced attention because you are propping up students who shouldn’t have been admitted to the course.