The Nova Scotia government has announced that 50 individuals a year will be able to receive welfare while attending post secondary education. The program will fund any gaps between an individual's resources and current income assistance rates. Read the details of the program on the Nova Scotia government's news release, "Income Assistance for Post-Secondary Education." But according to a CBC article: "Critics slam school assistance program," some are saying that program is too vague and does not help enough students.

"New evidence suggests that adult learning and raising literacy skills have the potential to significantly improve the economic wellbeing of those with relatively low initial education and skills. ... Less educated individuals are likely to experience relatively poor labour market outcomes over the entire course of their career, in the form of lower wages, a higher likelihood of unemployment, and lower status jobs. Differences in labour market outcomes based on education take effect early in a workers’ career, and persist throughout their lives." This information can be found in a new report by the Canadian Policy Research Network (CPRN).

A report by of the Social Research and Demonstration Corporation’s program of analysis for the Self-Sufficiency Project (SSP) sponsored by the federal Department of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC). The Self-Sufficiency Project is sponsored by HRSDC. The paper examines the extent and nature of educational upgrading among single parents on welfare. It also investigates whether policies that encourage income assistance (IA) recipients to exit welfare for full-time employment influence participation in educational activity. Read the 64 page report Educational Upgrading and Its Consequences Among Welfare Recipients (in PDF) or see the SSP's report in HTML.

A report provides evidence of Ontario children being humiliated if unable to pay their school fees. The report argues that these fees are not only difficult on low income families, but are also illegal and result from the underfunding of the Education system by the Ontario government. For more information read a CBC article, "Students from poor families 'shamed' by school fees."

A new report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) and Simon Fraser University (SFU), A Path Out of Poverty (in PDF), indicates the province must invest in education programs for low-income adults with upgrading needs if it wants achieve its goal of making BC the best-educated and most literate jurisdiction in North America.

Humanities 101 is a program for low-income people who have been denied access to university education in the past. The program exposes people who would like to learn about the liberal arts such as philosophy, poetry, literature, art history, women's studies and other topics who would otherwise be unable to due to poverty and other barriers.