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| EFA 2000 Assessment > Thematic Studies > | |
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| Literacy and Adult Education | |
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Principal author: Daniel A. Wagner, International Literacy Institute
For Presentation at the World Education Forum, Dakar (April 2000)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Full Report (PDF) - Rapport francais (PDF)
Introduction
The 1990 World Conference on Education for All (WCEFA)
in Jomtien, Thailand included adult literacy as one of its
six major worldwide goals. Specifically, a number of national
educational goals related to youth and adult education were
agreed upon, including: (1) to reduce the number of adult
illiterates to half of the 1990 level by the year 2000; and
(2) to improve learning achievement to an agreed percentage
of an appropriate age cohort (which might vary from country
to country). As part of all Jomtien goals, a new approach
to learning was emphasized, one that focused on measurable
learning achievement (rather than mere class attendance or
participation). These challenges, then, have formed the basis
for much of renewed international interest in literacy and
adult education over the past decade, and, in many ways, remain
the continuing Jomtien challenge for the first quarter of
the new millennium.
Although the complete elimination of illiteracy by
the year 2000 was adopted as a goal of UNESCO and a significant
number of its member states in the Udaipur Declaration of two
decades ago, the Jomtien Conference scaled back such promises,
and chose a more modest, and theoretically achievable, goal
of cutting illiteracy rates in half by the year 2000. The reasons
for this reduction in targeted goal were numerous. As this report
will describe, important gains have been made in literacy and
adult education over the past decade since Jomtien - in various
places and using various methods - but the overall literacy
situation remains still today one of the major challenges of
the 21st century.
During
the 1990s, views on literacy and illiteracy have changed dramatically.
Many literacy specialists and policy makers have moved away
from the monolithic view of illiteracy as a disease in which
the germs might be 'eradicated' with an appropriate drug or
vaccination. Rather, literacy is now more broadly viewed as
a product of educational, social and economic factors that cannot
be radically changed in short periods of time. Indeed, while
numerous efforts have been undertaken in both research and practice
in the past decade, it comes as no surprise that the fundamental
problems, and the global statistics, on literacy have changed
only moderately, whether in industrialized or developing countries.
Nonetheless, due in large part to increasingly competitive and
knowledge-based economies across the world, most governments
and international/bilateral agencies have expressed increased
concern about illiteracy and low literacy since Jomtien, even
though resource allocations have remained at a disproportionately
small fraction of what is contributed to formal schooling.
The present global thematic study on literacy and adult education
considers trends and innovations that have been particularly
salient over the WCEFA decade, though many of these same issues
have been present during the preceding decades. The particular
focus here is on the knowledge base that is currently available
as well as the gaps that need to be filled in order for the
field to make substantial progress in the coming decade and
beyond. The 'bottom line' of this study is that the overlapping
fields of literacy and adult education can and must do much
better in the future, but will require not only more fiscal
resources, but professional expertise (including teachers, specialists,
programme directors, and policy makers) as well.
Concepts
and definitions
Many
countries have been actively striving to meet Jomtien's major
goal of meeting the basic learning needs for all children, youth
and adults, as well as the conjoint necessity for an adequate
methodology for understanding whether such goals are being met.
Current national and international capacities remain limited,
however, for a variety of historical reasons. In the literacy
domain, there is a long tradition of statistics gathering, but
due to changing definitions of literacy, as well as a dearth
of human capacity in the educational measurement field, the
data on literacy have long been open to question and debate.
Many
definitions exist for literacy. All relate in some way, at
their core, to an individual's ability to understand printed
text and to communicate through print. Most contemporary definitions
portray literacy in relative rather than absolute terms. They
assume that there is no single level of skill or knowledge
that qualifies a person as "literate", but rather that there
are multiple levels and kinds of literacy (e.g., numeracy,
technological literacy). In order to have bearing on real
life situations, definitions of literacy must be sensitive
to skills needed in out-of-school contexts, as well as to
school-based competency requirements.
Historically,
it was possible to make an arbitrary distinction between those
who had been to school and those who had not; this was especially
obvious in the newly independent countries of the developing
world, which were just beginning to provide public schooling
beyond a relatively small elite. Those who had been to school
were labeled as "literate." However, this situation has changed
dramatically. While there are still millions of adults who have
never attended school, in even the poorest countries of the
world the majority of the population in the two youngest generations
(up to about age 40 years) has received some schooling. While
this leaves open the serious question of the level of literacy
of this perhaps minimally-schooled population, it nonetheless
points to a world with a much more variegated landscape of literacy
skills, levels of achievement, and degree of regular use.
Jomtien
influenced the definitional aspect of the literacy goal by broadening
the discussion to that of basic learning needs or competencies
(BLCs), which are seen not only in terms of mastery of the 3
R's (reading, writing and arithmetic), but also in terms of
other knowledge, problem-solving and life skills. Together,
BLCs are thought to promote empowerment and access to a rapidly
changing world. They should support independent functioning
and coping with practical problems or choices as a parent or
worker or citizen, and are seen as critical gatekeeper to job
entry and societal advancement in all countries. Thus, when
defining BLCs, there is a need to refer both to formal school-based
skills (such as ability to read prose text or to understand
mathematical notations) and also to the ability to manage functional
tasks and demands, regardless of whether such competencies were
developed through formal or nonformal education, or through
personal experiences in diverse informal learning situations.
The challenge of changing definitions is not a trivial one,
and will influence not only how policy makers view literacy
goals, but also how programme developers will seek to promote
literacy and adult education in the 21st century.
Status
and trends in literacy statistics
In
order to provide worldwide statistical comparisons, international
agencies have relied almost entirely on data provided by their
member countries. According to the most recent UNESCO statistics
(and estimates), world illiteracy rates have been dropping over
the last 2-3 decades, apparently due primarily to increases
in primary school enrollments. Yet these data also indicate
that the actual numbers of illiterates have remained relatively
constant, due to population growth. It was once assumed that
increased efforts for achieving universal primary schooling
would lead to a drop toward zero in adult illiteracy around
the world. These optimistic views are no longer widely held,
for a variety of reasons including: continued increases in population
growth in developing countries; declining quality of basic education
where rapid expansion has taken place; upward changes in the
skill standards for literacy, both in developing and industrialized
countries; improved measurement of literacy through surveys
which show that previous estimates of literacy based on school
grade levels achieved often overestimate actual basic learning
competencies .
According
to UNESCO, there were an estimated 962 million illiterates in
the world in 1990, 885 million in 1995, and an estimated 887
million in 2000, constituting 27% of the adult population in
the developing countries. Of these illiterates, the majority
are women, in some countries accounting for up to two-thirds
of adult illiteracy. Regionally, Eastern and Southern Asia have
the highest number of illiterates, with an estimated 71% of
the world's total illiterate population. The Sub-Saharan Africa
and Arab regions have about the same (40%) adult illiteracy
rate, with Latin America at about half this rate. Overall, the
geographic distribution of adult illiterates has not changed
very much over the Jomtien decade (or over the past several
decades). However, it should be noted that comparisons of illiteracy
rates in developing and industrialized countries can be misleading,
since definitions of literacy and illiteracy now vary widely,
and the UNESCO statistics on industrialized countries are no
longer seen by OECD countries as applicable. One consequence
of these changes in standards (and the international surveys
that have been done in recent years) is that adult literacy
has become, during the Jomtien decade, a greatly increased policy
interest in OECD countries. Policy interest in literacy in developing
countries remains high, but competition for resources has remained
a major impediment.
Innovations
are central to future success in literacy and adult education,
and learner motivation, once access is achieved, is a key dimension
for any programmatic improvement. This is true whether one is
in Bangladesh or in Bolivia. A major problem consistently mentioned
by service providers and policymakers is that participation
levels drop off rapidly after the first weeks or months of programme
participation. Many varied and valid reasons have been cited
as causes of this problem, such as: inadequate programme quality;
lack of time and resources of learners; poor quality of textbooks
and pedagogy; lack of social marketing; and so forth. There
is little doubt, however, that the general factor behind all
of these technical issues is that learners, for whatever sets
of reasons, do not feel motivated to participate and remain
in such voluntary programmes.
Innovative ways of meeting learner needs while at the same time
enhancing learner motivation include: language policy and planning
(e.g., providing more robust methods for introducing mother-tongue
and second language literacy), empowerment and community participation
(e.g., decentralization of literacy provision through NGOs),
learning, instruction and materials design (e.g., better concatenation
in materials development and production between formal and non-formal
education domains), gender and family (e.g. further growth of
intergenerational, mother-child literacy programmes), multi-sectoral
connections (e.g., adapting literacy instruction for integration
with health education and agricultural extension programmes),
post-literacy and income-generation (e.g., integration of literacy
with income generation schemes), technology and distance education
(e.g., use of multimedia for improved teacher training). Case
examples of developments in each of these areas are provided
in this study.
Capacity
building, professional development and external agency support
Capacity building is at the heart of the renewal
of effective and high quality work in literacy and adult education.
The committed involvement of professionals is required for
any system-wide change. One major limitation for change in
adult literacy is that the large majority of the instructional
staff is part-time (including volunteers with high turnover).
Furthermore, there have been only limited resources and strategies
for involving full-time professionals as well as volunteer
and part-time instructors and tutors in meaningful professional
development. There is a major need to develop systems and
capacities that enable administrators, teachers, and tutors
to engage in professional staff training and development as
an ongoing process within programmes and to link staff development
more closely with service improvement and evaluation/monitoring.
Teachers and administrators should have more opportunities
to understand and learn from local problems and to invent
local solutions. Increasing the proportion of full-time instructors
is an essential element of enhanced professional development;
without more full-time staff, programmes have little incentive
to spend scarce resources on professional development.
Many agencies, bilateral and multilateral, provide support for
literacy and adult education, but only UNESCO has put literacy
in its top list of educational priorities over recent decades.
Two UNESCO-supported institutions - UNESCO Institute of Education
in Hamburg, which organized CONFINTEA-V in 1997, and the International
Literacy Institute, which organized the World Conference on
Literacy (Philadelphia, 1996) and a series of regional forums
on literacy - have helped UNESCO's international agenda in literacy
and adult education. In addition, UNDP, UNICEF and the World
Bank have supported adult literacy programmes over the decades,
along with a number of key bilateral agencies (such as NORAD,
SIDA, DFID, CIDA, DSE, DANIDA, USAID). As part of its Education
Sector Review (1997), the World Bank, in collaboration with
Norway, has begun recently an important initiative on adult
basic education and literacy in Africa. Various evaluation projects
have been commissioned such as in Uganda, and projects in Ghana,
Senegal, Gambia and elsewhere are underway or in planning. UNDP
was active in the 1960s-1970s with the Experimental World Literacy
Programme, and UNICEF remains active in promoting basic skills
and life skills for out of school youths (particularly girls
and young women).
Challenges
for the future
Literacy and adult education will need to focus more
than ever before on which kinds and what levels of literacy
are required for each society, as well as for specific groups
within that society. The year 2000 international statistics,
dramatic as they remain, do not fully reveal the endemic problems
associated with adult literacy work. The central problem, as
with the broader field of education, is the quality of the education
as it relates to the individual adult learner. National campaigns
and programmes have often gone wrong because of the need for
too rapid progress and for economies of scale. This combination
of factors has led to low motivation on the part of adult learners
around the world, and to poor outcomes in both learning achievement
and participation rates. What is needed is a greater focus on
programme quality along the following themes: professional development,
learner motivation, knowledge-based programme design, and increased
openness to new approaches. Each of these challenges is described
very briefly below:
Professional
development
The professional development of administrators,
directors, teachers, and tutors is an ongoing and critical process
for programme improvement in literacy and adult education. Teachers
and administrators should have more opportunities to investigate
local problems and to invent local solutions. By assuring a
greater percentage of full-time teachers, literacy programmes
will have a great incentive to invest in staff training and
development, which are central to improving the quality of all
literacy and adult education programmes.
Learner motivation
The motivation of adult learners
is a key dimension that either can promote participation and
retention, or, when lacking, can lead to poor take up and retention
of literacy and adult education programmes. In contrast to what
was thought over recent decades, the challenge of motivation
lies not in providing the "political will" of governments, but
rather in finding ways to provide what the private sector terms,
rather simply, "customer service." Thus, in order to reach the
unreached and the most excluded (e.g., unschooled, women, ethnic-linguistic
minorities, rural, and migrants) programmes will need to be
tailored to address diverse needs, and have direct, discernable
outcomes, and incentive-rich experiences.
Knowledge-based programme design
Much more needs to
be done in order to build the knowledge base and expertise employed
in the service of literacy and adult education. Relative to
other education areas, few research studies are being produced
in literacy and adult education, and donor agencies have been
too reluctant in their support serious evaluation studies or
applied research. To move the field forward will require a greater
emphasis on what works and what doesn't, as well as further
support from donor agencies.
Openness to new approaches
A striking aspect
of adult literacy work is its relative isolation. For the most
part, literacy and adult education specialists and practitioners
have little contact with mainstream specialists in education,
and even less with sectors outside of education. There is an
overall need to be open to diversity in learners and in the
contexts in which they reside. No new approach is more obvious
than technology, which has been taken up increasingly in the
formal school settings, but has yet to have a serious input
into adult education in most countries. Indeed, in developing
countries, the overall limitations in fiscal and human resources
have meant that technology remains far from being implemented,
even though substantial cost-effectiveness appears to be achievable.
At the Jomtien conference, the literacy goal was to reduce
the illiteracy rate in each country by 50% in one decade. This
has not happened in any country. And yet there is a widening
recognition that low-literacy and poor basic learning competencies
(by varying standards) are even more prevalent today than had
been assumed a decade ago. Furthermore, with population growth
the absolute number of illiterates has declined very little
since Jomtien.
With
national economies and civic participation more dependent
than ever on an educated and literate citizenry, the world
education community is faced with multiple and serious challenges.
On the one hand, agencies which support or engage in literacy
work need to be more realistic about what can be achieved
within budget constraints. Such realism entails lowering expectations
about major changes in individual, social, and economic outcomes,
while at the same time holding literacy service providers
to higher standards of accountability and professionalism.
As in formal schooling, literacy and adult education do not
provide a magic answer for any society, but they are part
and parcel of all aspects of national development. On the
other hand, agencies can enhance adult literacy programmes
by creating new synergies and collaborations, by improving
policy linkages between formal and non-formal sectors, by
providing better pathways from adult and youth literacy programmes
into the formal school system, by combining non-formal programmes
for adults and early childhood programmes, by taking advantage
of new technologies, and by investing resources in assessment,
evaluation and monitoring, surveys and applied research.
With national economies and civic participation
more dependent than ever on an educated and literate citizenry,
the world education community is faced with multiple and serious
challenges. On the one hand, agencies which support or engage
in literacy work need to be more realistic about what can
be achieved within budget constraints. Such realism entails
lowering expectations about major changes in individual, social,
and economic outcomes, while at the same time holding literacy
service providers to higher standards of accountability and
professionalism. As in formal schooling, literacy and adult
education do not provide a magic answer for any society, but
they are part and parcel of all aspects of national development.
On the other hand, agencies can enhance adult literacy programmes
by:
- Building a more solid knowledge base for field-based innovations,
- improving professional development and human resources capacity,
- providing better pathways from non-formal youth and adult
literacy programmes into the formal school system,
- combining non-formal programmes for adults and early childhood
programmes,
- taking advantage of new technologies,
- investing resources in assessment, evaluation and monitoring,
surveys and applied research,
- creating new synergies and collaborations between govermental
and non-governmental agencies.
This
global thematic study has attempted to highlight some of the
most important problems and prospects in improving the quality
of literacy and adult education work, and efforts to meet the
needs of people who are often excluded or marginalized from
quality education. The importance of literacy and basic learning
competencies in the lives of people the world over is difficult
to overestimate. The simple fact that even today nearly one-quarter
of humanity lacks such essential - and obtainable - competencies
still shocks the world. It will be all the more striking in
the year 2020, if we have been unable to substantially improve
this situation. Yet the tools for making major gains are within
reach if the best know-how can be put into service. Future literacy
and adult education work will require a sustained, coherent,
informed and increased effort.
For
more information, please contact :
Daniel A. Wagner (Principal Author)
International Literacy Institute
University of Pennsylvania - UNESCO
3910 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104-3111
Tel (general): 215-898-2100
Tel (direct): 215-898-9803
Fax: 215-898-9804
Email: wagner@literacy.upenn.edu
ILI website: www.literacyonline.org
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