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2.
STATUS AND TRENDS
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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, and definitions of, literacy have long been open to
question and debate. |
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| 2.1
Concepts and definitions |
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There are many definitions 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.
Two of
the better known definitions of literacy are:
"A person
is literate who can with understanding both read and write
a short simple statement on his everyday life...A person
is functionally literate who can engage in all those activities
in which literacy is required for effective functioning
of his group and community..." (UNESCO, 1978)
"Using
printed and written information to function in society to
achieve one's goals and to develop one's knowledge and potential."
(OECD/Statistics Canada, 1995)
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Most definitions of literacy have traditionally included calculating
skills as part of the broad definition of literacy, but often
these have been limited primarily to the four arithmetic operations.
It is now widely thought that numeracy assessment should encompass
a broad range of skills, thought processes, and background knowledge
(formal and /or informal). Numeracy enables interpreting, acting
upon and communicating about mathematical information in a wide
range of everyday or work-related and other life contexts, and
is needed as well for effective functioning in a world of amounts,
prices, weights, distances, and so forth. Thus, literacy and
numeracy are now considered to be at the centre of the educational
goals not only of children in school, but youth and adults in
need of further education. |
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The question of literacy definitions has both conceptual and
practical dimensions (Venezky et al., 1990). Historically, and
especially before World War II, 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 to more than a relatively small
elite. As the 21st century begins, 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 attended some school. While this
leaves open the serious question of the level of literacy of
this often 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. |
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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 Rs, 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
gatekeepers 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 the ability to manage
functional tasks and demands, regardless of whether such competencies
were developed through formal or non-formal 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. |
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While the primary focus of this paper is on adult education
in developing countries and for the most disadvantaged, it is
important to take note of the important advances that have been
made in adult education, some of which were highlighted at CONFINTEA-V,
the Fifth International Conference on Adult Education (Hamburg),
at which the following definition was provided: "The objectives
of youth and adult education … are to develop the autonomy and
the sense of responsibility of people and communities, to reinforce
the capacity to deal with the transformations taking place in
the economy, in culture and in society…, in short to enable
people and communities to take control of their destiny and
society…." (UIE, 1997). As can be seen, this definition of adult
education takes a worldwide perspective, and helps to provide
a framework for much of the activities that agencies and governments
will support in the coming years. |
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| 2.2
The changing nature of literacy assessment |
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Since the 1950s, there have been relatively few changes in the
reporting of literacy statistics by UNESCO, which began to provide
standardized information to other agencies for the purpose of
international comparisons. The methodology for gathering such
data appears simple enough, but contains a certain number of
assumptions which call into question the reliability and validity
of the data as currently collected. Literacy rates in each country
are most often derived in one of two ways: either the national
government provides these 'rates' as a function of some census
information (often outdated by as much as one or two decades),
where individuals are asked if they are or are not 'literate';
or, primary school completion rates are used as a way to calculate
presumed 'literates' that are 15 or 16 years and older. These
data often require a certain amount of adjustment due to population
growth, changes in national methods of calculation, and national
changes in language policy. |
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Such literacy data suffer from some serious flaws, compounded
often by the lack of up-to-date census information. Most importantly,
the traditional classification of individuals as "literate"
versus "illiterate" is now of relatively little value, though
it remains a form of classification much in use today. The situation
in the year 2000 is much more complex, as some contact is now
made with primary schooling, non-formal education programmes,
and the mass-media by the vast majority of families in developing
countries. Indeed, it is the rare society today that includes
more than a small number of individuals who, for a variety of
idiosyncratic reasons are unaware of the meaning and uses of
reading and writing systems (Wagner, 1990; ILI/UNESCO, 1998).
There also exist enormous within-country differences, as schooling
and literacy may vary dramatically by gender, ethnicity, and
urban and rural residence. |
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Literacy is more usefully seen as a set of individual skills,
but these skills may be thought to be sufficient or insufficient,
depending on the social, cultural and political context of
any given society. Thus, being able to read a newspaper may
justify the label of "literate" in one context, but in a second
context may be a less relevant measure than a mother's ability
to fill in a government health form for her sick child. Access
to credible data about the status of BLCs can offer policy
makers and planners several advantages, and enable them to:
Judge
the current status of basic skills within the out-of-school
youth and adult populations, irrespective of former school
attendance (for example, see a recent study on the impact
of schooling on literacy skills, see Box 1);
Identify
skills deficiencies among out-of-school youths and young
adults (or subgroups within these populations) which have
economic or societal implications and that can serve as
targets for interventions;
Know
more about the relative effectiveness of existing formal
and non-formal programmes; and
Make
further progress towards meeting the 1990 Jomtien goal of
reducing illiteracy by 50%.
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Box
1. Bangladesh: Assessing Basic Learning Skills
Rates
of illiteracy in Bangladesh have been consistently high,
some 62% overall and 74% of the female population; Bangladesh
remains the nation with the fourth highest number of
illiterates in the world. To assess literacy levels
in Bangladesh, researchers needed to develop instruments
to measure whether or not a person had achieved the
essential basic learning skills considered necessary
for him or her to function at a minimum level of competence
in Bengali society. These basic skills could be described
as the minimum level required for self-sustained development.
A test of basic learning skills was developed, for reading,
writing, and oral and written mathematics for an assessment
of a national sample of over 5000 individuals age 11
years and older living in rural areas. The highest level
in each subject area was judged by a panel to be the
minimum required to, for example, allow people to function
in the market place, read passages of simple text independently
and write very brief messages. Satisfactory internal
consistency measures of reliability were obtained for
the items on each subject level. In addition, data indicated
substantial agreement between the objective ratings
and self-assessments. A total of 29% of the tested sample
indicated that they could read, and 24% that they could
write a letter. However, almost 30% of the sample failed
to master any of the levels the four subject areas tested.
While evidence showed that basic learning skills and
formal schooling were related, 36% had dropped out by
the end of grade 3, at which point the majority had
not mastered the basic skills in any of the four subjects
tested. Indeed, those who had completed only 3 years
of primary school showed levels of basic skills which
were only marginally better than those who had never
attended school in Bangladesh. Adapted from Greaney
et al. (1999).
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In measuring learning achievement, there are a range of studies
- national and international - that have focused on reading,
math, science, and so forth, both in school and out. For example,
the IEA (International Association for the Evaluation of Educational
Achievement) undertook a number of important international comparative
studies of learning achievement, such as the 1992 Reading/Literacy
study (Elley, 1992) of 9 and 14 year olds in 32 countries (including
a number of LDCs such as Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Botswana), and
the 1996 international Math/Science study (TIMSS) of 4th and
8th grade students in 26 countries (including LDCs such as Thailand,
Iran). And the 1995 International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS)
study, in 6 OECD countries, measured out-of-school reading,
writing and math skills in adults aged 16-65 years (OECD/Statistics
Canada, 1995, 1997). Each of these studies contained somewhat
parallel methodologies for the measurement of learning achievement,
such as the use of item sampling pools, translation/back-translation
methods, and psychometric validation for item rejection. |
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While there is legitimate interest (and sometime significant
amounts of funding) for such international comparative studies,
there has been less interest (and less funding) for efforts
to measure basic learning achievement at the programme level.
This observation appears particularly obvious in LDCs, where
NGO-based programmes rarely have the capacity to engage in empirically
sound self-evaluation, and where international agencies infrequently
have the resources (human or fiscal) to invest in evaluations
that include learning achievement (there are some well-known
exceptions to this generalization, such as BRAC in Bangladesh
or TOSTAN in Senegal). With a risk of possible oversimplification,
it seems fair to say that many (if not most) of the innovative
educational programmes sponsored by development agencies in
collaboration with governmental or non-governmental agencies,
seldom have the benefit of formative or summative evaluations
which include learning achievement; nor, with few exceptions,
have such programmes invested in local capacity building (for
a more detailed discussion, see ILI/UNESCO, 1998). |
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While UNESCO (1978) includes "reading, writing and calculation"
in its definition of functional literacy, international agency
data has typically been gathered only on reading and writing.
Indeed, separate indices on numeracy rates for UN member nations
have never been provided, and very little attention has been
paid to the arithmetic part of the definition by international
organizations and development planners (see Gal, 1993). Survey
information has rarely been gathered on mathematical abilities
in Third World countries, and the few literacy evaluations that
have taken place which include separate analyses for numeracy
generally provide insufficient detail for judging specific numeracy
abilities. |
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In the area of learning achievement of BLCs, some new trends
are discernable. A low-cost, culturally sensitive assessment
framework that combine elements of household surveys (e.g.,
using moderately sized samples) with the use of measurement
tools that are attuned to local and national needs has recently
been development (see ILI/UNESCO, 1999; see Box 2). While maintaining
a low level of operational and human resources costs, such assessment
designs can satisfy the needs of international and national
agencies for credible data as a pre-condition for supporting
or investing in new human development initiatives. Further,
these data can be also used to provide impact or evaluation
data about national and local programmes that teach basic skills. |
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Box
2. Low Cost Methods of Literacy Assessment
Literacy
tests have ranged traditionally from simple questions
such as 'can you read and write,' to signing one's name,
to reading a short paragraph on a life-relevant topic,
to answering multiple-choice questions on a test battery.
The proposed assessment scheme for reading is based
on a matrix of reading skills and domains of print.
This matrix can be used to define four ability levels:
none, prerequisite, basic, and advanced. Reading skills,
in this scheme are divided into three general categories:
decoding, comprehension, applied skills. Three domains
of print are described, including (1) prose text (e.g.,
newspapers, pamphlet, books, stories, etc.); (2) documents
(e.g., official forms, labels, advertisements, bills,
receipts, etc.); and (3) decontextualized print (e.g.,
letters, words, phrases, and sentences). Levels of reading
may be defined as follows:
None or non-reader level. This level refers to those
individuals who, for all practical purposes, do not
possess even the rudiments of reading skills, and cannot,
for example, recognize more than a few letters of the
alphabet at most.
Prerequisite level. Prerequisites to reading competency
include letter recognition, decoding, and "sounding
out" of short texts. In some languages, such as English
or Arabic, the relation of printed text to oral language
is not at all simple and may require extensive knowledge
of the linguistic, semantic, and grammatical structure
of the language just to pronounce a printed text. Thus,
decoding skill must be operationalized with respect
to specific language and script contexts.
Basic
level. A basic level in reading ability can be defined
as skill in "reading to learn" and "reading to do."
The former set of skills may be seen as most related
to school-based reading achievement, where the focus
is on reading comprehension as a means for learning
about content domains. The latter set of skills are
more common to out-of-school functional literacy needs
such as reading signs, following procedural directions,
locating a specific item on a bus schedule, and other
applied tasks.
Advanced
level. Advanced skills are built on those used in basic
level tasks, but are applied to more complex tasks and
print domains. As noted earlier, advanced skills are
equivalent to a level of skill for those who have successfully
completed secondary school curriculum or its equivalent.
Adapted from ILI/UNESCO (1999).
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| 2.3
Statistical trends in literacy worldwide |
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Literacy and illiteracy, when considered in statistical terms,
can provide useful comparisons by region, country, gender, and
so forth, over time. The analysis of illiteracy rates by country
and region is helpful for identifying populations most in need,
and for recognizing regional trends and disparities. |
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Tables 1 and 2 present primary school and adult literacy statistics
for world's adult population, with developing countries categorized
by region and country. Figure 1 presents a graphical view of
illiteracy rates by region. According to UNESCO (1997b), 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). |
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As shown in Figure 2, statistics indicate that illiterate adults
in industrialized (developed) countries make up a small fraction
of the adult population. In 1980, the estimated illiteracy rate
for industrialized countries was 3%, and declined to 1% by 1997.
However, utilizing such aggregate figures can be misleading
in two ways. First, there are parts of Southern Europe, for
example in Portugal, where the illiteracy rate in 1990 was estimated
to be as high as 15%, which is about the same as the rate for
the region of Latin America and the Caribbean as a whole, and
higher than several individual countries in that region. Second,
and more importantly, the standards used by UNESCO for developing
countries are no longer considered appropriate for industrialized
countries, which have (as noted earlier) developed their own
measures for assessing functional literacy problems (see OECD/Statistics
Canada, 1995; ILI/UNESCO, 1998). Thus, comparisons of illiteracy
rates in developing and industrialized countries can be misleading,
since definitions of literacy and illiteracy now vary widely.
One consequence of these changes in standards is that literacy
(illiteracy and low-literacy) have seen a greatly increased
policy interest in OECD countries as well as in developing countries
over the WCEFA decade. |
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| 2.4
Gender differences |
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One of the most salient factors affecting literacy rates worldwide
is that of the gender disparity. Of the almost one billion illiterates
currently in the world, the large majority are women. Figure
3 shows trends in illiteracy rates by gender and by region from
1980 to 1995. Although there are large variations by region,
illiteracy rates invariably are higher for women than for men
in developing countries. A summary of gender gaps for 87 countries
published by UNESCO (1990) found that: (1) in 36 countries,
all of them in Africa or Asia, the difference between male and
female literacy rates is over 20%; (2) in 26 countries, nearly
all of them in Africa and Asia, the male-female difference is
between 10% and 20%; and (3) in 25 countries, most of which
are in Latin America and the Caribbean, the disparity is less
than 10%. Unfortunately, the gender gap in illiteracy rates
has only declined only moderately in recent decades, though
some regions (Eastern Asia/Oceania) seem to have made major
gains. In some countries improvements due to increased primary
school access for girls have been noted, while in other countries
differential completion of primary schooling favors boys, hence
maintaining or increasing the gender gap in literacy for adolescent
girls. If educational access trends do not change dramatically
in the coming decades, it is estimated that male/female parity
in literacy will be not be reached for over a century. |
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Box
3. Gender Trends of Illiteracy in Morocco
In
Morocco, a direct literacy assessment module was designed
and integrated into the National Survey on Household
Living Standards, sponsored by the World Bank. The main
objectives of this survey were to examine in greater
detail the range and variability of literacy skills
and knowledge among individuals, and especially among
women. The literacy survey consisted of nine sections,
including self-report questions on literacy skills and
behaviours, questions on basic healthcare behaviours,
assessment of information location skills, mental and
written numeracy assessments, and assessments of reading
and writing in Arabic. A national stratified sample
of 2240 participants received the survey. The most significant
finding was that Morocco has cut its illiteracy rate
by one-half during the past three decades, and the trend
is one of continuing improvement. However, the disparities
in literacy attainment between men and women (as well
as between urban and rural populations) remain a major
issue. Surprisingly, the gender gap in literacy among
the present younger generation is even larger than that
of their grand-parents or even parents. Whether this
is the result of selective out-migration of literate
individuals from the countryside to the towns, or of
insufficient educational access and quality in rural
areas, is a question with profound policy implications,
and requires further investigation. It clearly shows
that males have received more education than females
during this time period. Results of the study suggest
that part of the explanation for high levels of illiteracy
in rural areas is the relative frequency of households
in which both parents are illiterate, while in the urban
areas men are more likely to marry a woman who has some
literacy skills. The evidence indicates that completely-illiterate
households are by far more likely to raise illiterate
children, while maternal literacy positively affects
both boys' and girls' enrolment and attainment. Adapted
from: Lavy, et al. (1995).
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| 2.5
Rural and urban differences |
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Table 3 shows illiteracy rates for urban and rural populations
in 18 representative countries. In most of these countries,
illiteracy rates in rural areas are more than twice as high
as in urban areas. The importance of this statistic becomes
even more obvious when one considers that in many of these countries
the rural population is much higher than the urban population.
These statistics have implications for literacy campaigns and
adult literacy programmes, since the population density of illiterates
can have a significant impact on choice of language, recruitment
of literacy trainers, and concentration of effort. Furthermore,
as a predominantly rural phenomenon in developing countries,
the preponderance of urban educated teachers tends to maintain
a cultural gulf which has continued for centuries. |
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It should be noted that illiteracy in industrialized countries
may be following a rather different pattern. The low-literacy
problem in countries like the United States, Canada and France
is largely due to the presence of large numbers of minority
populations that immigrated with little schooling and/or dropped
out of school before attaining sufficient literacy skills. These
minority populations have tended to become concentrated in large
urban areas, thereby pushing urban illiteracy/low-literacy rates
higher than in rural areas. |
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| 2.6
Other factors related to literacy |
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Literacy has often been seen as not only a 'good thing' in and
of itself, but as also having a variety of by-products of great
social and economic importance, such as improved health, lowered
fertility, increased income, and so forth. Thus, over the years,
international agencies and national governments have tracked
other factors as they are related to literacy statistics. A
brief synopsis follows: |
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Age. As shown in Table 4, the over-45 years-of-age group has
the highest illiteracy rate in all regions (including OECD countries
as well, but not shown in this table), which most likely can
be attributed to the fewer years of schooling (or poorer quality
of schooling) that this group received. The illiteracy rate
for this older group is expected to remain high until well into
the next quarter century, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa,
the Arab States and Southern Asia. A second observation is that
there has been a large decrease in the past 20 years in the
illiteracy rate of those in the 15-19 and 20-24 age groups,
which can be attributed, conversely, to the rise in access to
schooling. |
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Schooling. As shown in Table 2, primary schooling and adult
illiteracy are very highly correlated, in particular since most
developing countries use the rate of primary schooling (as noted
earlier) as a principal proxy variable for determining who is
labelled as "literate." In addition, Figure 4 shows that out-of-school
youth, in spite of increases in the rate of school enrolments
in LDCs, continues to be high, and is growing rather dramatically
in Africa. Overall, even though enrolments have gone up in many
developing countries, the real impact on literacy achievement
remains unknown for the most part, since surveys of learning
achievement following schooling have rarely been undertaken. |
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Health. As shown in Figure 5, life expectancy and literacy are
highly correlated overall, so much so that those countries with
the lowest literacy rates actually have a life expectancy of
only half of those that live in the most literate developing
countries! Furthermore, given the common recognition of the
key roles that women play in fertility planning, infant care/nutrition,
and the health education, it is not surprising that female illiteracy
is seen as a major obstacle to health and social development.
As shown in Figures 6 and 7, women's literacy rates are also
correlated with declining fertility rates and declining child
mortality rates in LDCs. It should be recalled, however, that
even though the cross-national correlations between female literacy
and health indicators are often statistically significant, there
is remarkably little evidence which shows that there is a causal
relationship between these variables. Recent evidence indicates
that both formal schooling and literacy may have independent
effects on the health and fertility outcomes of women, but the
requisite longitudinal studies have yet to be carried out (LeVine
et al., 2000). |
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Economic well-being. There is a widespread belief that literacy
and economic well-being (at the individual and national level)
go hand in hand. One way to evaluate this assertion is to plot
GNP per capita against adult literacy rates in developing countries
(see Figure 6). Also, nearly two decades ago the World Bank
sponsored a series of studies to show the impact of literacy
and schooling on agricultural productivity (Jamison & Moock,
1984). More recently, in industrialized countries, literacy
levels have been shown to be one of the strongest predictors
of individual income (OECD/Statistics Canada, 1995, 1997). These
data are among those that are most often cited in terms of the
importance of investments in literacy (although these correlational
data suffer from the same non-causation issue cited in the health
section above). |
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| 2.7
Accountability and impact |
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In addition to understanding literacy levels as a statistical
phenomenon, there is an increasing need to be able to analyze
the effectiveness of literacy and adult education programmes
as they operate in a variety of settings on the ground. These
efforts, commonly thought of as programme evaluation work, constitute
an important element in our understanding of literacy and adult
education, and how service provision can be improved and expanded.
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As with programme evaluation work more generally, literacy and
adult education programme evaluation would normally include
formative (on-going) and summative (post-hoc) evaluations. Each
of these might include a focus on planning and strategies for
literacy work, programme implementation and management, student
monitoring, attendance and retention, skill acquisition, integration
with other agencies, and post-literacy activities. Serious work
has been accomplished in some of these areas, mainly in terms
of formative studies and post-hoc analyses of management; only
in the latter part of the WCEFA decade has work in this area
begun again (see, e.g., Burchfield, 1997; Carron et al. 1989;
Easton, 1998, ILI/UNESCO, 1998; LeVine et al., 2000; Okech et
al., 1999). With the expansion of interest in literacy worldwide,
and with the push of the recommendations of the 1990 WCEFA,
far greater attention will need to be paid to rigorous and in-depth
evaluation of literacy and adult education programmes. Indeed,
it may be that one of the key impediments to expanding public
and government support for adult literacy programmes has been
the failure of those who support adult literacy programmes to
provide the type of reliable databases and impact evaluations
typically utilized in other educational efforts. |
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