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3.
DOMAINS OF INNOVATION
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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.
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If adult learners, as the adage goes, vote with their feet,
how can service providers provide more incentives for them to
stay in the programmes. We know that disincentives (such as
government mandates, controls, punishments) are relatively ineffective
for learning (and may have long term negative consequences as
well). But it is not always clear to the learner, teacher, or
policymaker why a learner should take time away from other important
home and work activities to participate in a non-formal education
programme. Indeed, this is a common perception given by adult
learners when they quit a programme. It is not obvious, furthermore,
what incentives ought to be. Since there are many different
types of learners in many different life and cultural contexts,
only further research on this question will enable programmes
to better tailor their offerings to favor increased motivation
and participation. |
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However, there are some areas where flexibility and choice,
as in the marketplace, make considerable sense, such as choice
of language for learning, choice of programme design (e.g.,
for farmers, mothers, workers), and choice of 'follow-on' programmes
such as certificates for school entry for youth, job training
for adults, and so forth. Tailoring programmes to better fit
the learning consumer is a necessity for the future, and one
that many national literacy programmes have yet to face directly
and with the additional resources required. In the sections
below, a number of domains are described where innovations are
happening now, or will be required in the future. |
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| 3.1
Language policy and planning |
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Most countries have formulated an explicit language policy which
states which language or languages have official status. The
decision on national or official language(s) is usually based
on such factors as major linguistic groups, colonial or post-colonial
history, and the importance of a given language to the concerns
of economic development. Official languages are also those commonly
used in primary school, though there may be differences between
languages used in beginning schooling and those used later on.
The use of mother tongue instruction in adult education remains
a topic of continuing debate, with mother tongue literacy favored
by most experts until the early 1990s (Wagner, 1992). However,
with the advance of primary schooling, there appears to be growing
a diversity of views, especially among adult learners in many
countries where access to the economic market place drives motivation
for particular (often colonial) languages. |
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Box
4. Language Development for Literacy: The Shiyeyi in
Botswana
Since
independence, the government of Botswana has practiced
an exclusive language policy, in which only English
has been used in government circles, at the exclusion
of all 26 languages represented in the country, with
a limited use of the national language, Setswana. However,
in recent years more positive statements have been made
in Parliament regarding the use of other languages in
education and society. Such statements have provided
an environment conducive to NGOs developing other languages
for use in public education and also out-of-school literacy
programmes. One such organization is undertaking to
revive the language and culture of the Shiyeyi-speaking
people in north-western and central Botswana. By the
1990s, it was documented that most of these people,
especially the young, did not speak Shiyeyi. Following
some pioneering work by a South African linguist working
with indigenous scholars, an organization was formed
in 1995 called Kamanakao, "the remnants," to develop
and maintain what remains of the Shiyeyi language and
culture, as part of the overall national Setswana culture.
The main strategy of Kamanakao Association has been
to conduct participatory training and research workshops
in villages throughout the Shiyeyi-speaking region.
These workshops have been to collect data for developing
the orthography, to record oral literature, and survey
speakers on their attitudes towards Shiyeyi with regard
to preferences for literacy. In the past, adult literacy
materials written in Setswana, the national language,
have been largely unsuccessful in non-Setswana-speaking
communities; in addition, children in non-Setswana speaking
areas have underachieved year after year. The Shiyeyi-speaking
people recognized the considerable benefit that could
be derived from mother-tongue literacy in their communities.
Literacy classes in Shiyeyi were started in several
rural areas, and other areas have been targeted for
future classes for adults and youth. Adapted from Nyati-Ramahobo
(1998).
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In numerous developing countries, a significant proportion
of students in primary school are either illiterate in their
mother tongue or receive only a few years of mother tongue
instruction before a second language is introduced as a medium
of instruction. Poor second language literacy proficiency
is a principal cause of high repetition and wastage rates,
and of low achievement in academic subjects in primary and
secondary schools, with profound consequences for employment
and other externalities of schooling.
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5.
Vernacular "Bridge" Literacy in Egypt
The
gap between the Arabic language of formal education
and adult literacy (fusha) and the Arabic dialect or
vernacular spoken at home, at the marketplace and most
everywhere outside of school walls appears to be a major
cause of low learning achievement rates in schools and
low adult literacy in the Arab region. The important
linguistic distance which separates fusha from the learners'
personal experience, familiar topics, and concrete real
world materials is a cause of serious pedagogical problems,
leading to lack of adequate language competence and
learner self-confidence, as well as poor quality of
education, and high repetition and drop-out rates in
formal and non-formal schooling. One method for improving
this situation is the use of vernacular (or dialectal)
Arabic as a "bridge" literacy. The use of vernacular
Arabic in the early stages of Arabic literacy is aimed
at giving early assistance to adult learners. It makes
the learning of the decoding skills easier by connecting
the letters of the Arabic script to known and more accessible
relevant language patterns and forms. Some NGOs are
successfully using vernacular adult literacy in Egypt
to improve the learners' motivation and learning achievement.
In the British-supported Egyptian Adult Literacy Training
Project, Aswatna ("Our voices"), contains a selection
of vernacular student writing with more than 100 pieces
written by adult literacy students. Because it is the
product of real-life experience, vernacular writing
is now used to stimulate class discussions and promote
an enhanced mobilization. Adapted from Maamouri (1998).
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Because of the significant political aspects of first and second
language policy, many donor agencies and developing country
officials have been reluctant to review language policies as
they affect literacy work. Nonetheless, there are a number of
important areas of work which need to be addressed beyond the
confines of the debate over "which language/literacy should
come first." For example, more needs to be known about such
issues as: (1) the use of 'bridge' dialects to facilitate the
learning of standard language literacy (see Box 5); (2) how
the implementation of language of instruction policies affects
literacy after schooling; (3) the effects of using second language
literacy in school on wastage and grade repetition; (4) the
implications of using the second language literacy for academic
subjects like mathematics, science, health, nutrition, and agriculture;
(5) skill retention of mother tongue and second language literacy
skills in daily life after leaving school; and (6) whether (or
under what conditions) mother tongue literacy should be a precondition
for the introduction of second language literacy in school-based
and non-formal settings (see Box 6). These specific areas of
inquiry are more tractable and less political than the mother
tongue vs. second language debate, and they may be more relevant
to improving the effectiveness of literacy programmes. Overall
these issues fall within the broad context of the cultural appropriateness
of literacy programmes, a matter that remains still much in
contention (Street, 1999). |
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Box
6. "The Fire That Never Dies" - Guarani Literacy in
Bolivia
For over a decade, the Guaranis have been undergoing
a process of ethnic and cultural revival. This process
began when some Guaranis who had received basic education
became aware of the dramatic situation of their people,
and in the late 1980s the Proyecto de Educación Intercultural
Bilingüe Guarani was launched, beginning with bilingual
education programmes to be offered in all the communities
where small development projects operated. For these
a Guarani reading primer, a mathematics primer, and
a Spanish as a second language manual had been prepared.
Beginning with 500 students in 22 primary schools, the
programme grew to 3000 pupils in 40 schools by the mid-1990s.
Subsequently, a literacy campaign was designed, with
two complementary lines of action: one for absolute
or functional illiterates, and another for those who
although literate in Spanish were not able to read and
write in Guarani. The literacy primers were organized
under the general title Tataendi - "the fire that never
dies" - because "in our homes the fire is always lit...The
one hundred years that have passed since the Kuruyuki
massacre (in 1892) have only been like ashes that have
tried to kill the fire of our culture...Now it is our
turn to keep and feed the tata [fire] our ancestors
have left us. We want this tataendi to become a big
fire capable of giving light and warmth to the whole
Guarani people." Only weeks after the opening ceremony,
training workshops were begun for literacy teachers,
and in just the first four phases of the programme,
over 12,000 adults learners were served. Through their
involvement in the campaign, these literacy teachers
discovered what it meant to be Guarani as well as how
important it was to organize their campaign around their
language and culture. The Guaranis' involvement in a
successful bilingual education programme allowed them
to see their native language and bilingual education
as potential resources to construct a viable and different
future. The Guaranis have provided a lesson on the importance
of indigenous values and indigenous culture, as well
as about how the direct involvement of a population
can contribute to improving the quality of education
and to promoting literacy among communities which had
not before felt the need to read and write. Adapted
from Lopez (1997).
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| 3.2
Empowerment and community participation |
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The notion of empowerment through literacy has been a constant
refrain since the inception of literacy campaigns (Arnove &
Graff, 1987). As noted in the final declaration of CONFINTEA-V,
"It is essential that approaches to adult learning be based
on people's own heritage, culture, values and prior experiences
and that the diverse ways in which these approaches are implemented
enable and encourage every citizen to be actively involved and
to have a voice." Clearly, empowerment is a centrepiece of adult
education. Indeed, much of the rhetoric surrounding the importance
of literacy utilizes the metaphors and imagery that connote
empowering the individual against potential oppression, and
there is a great amount of anecdotal evidence that empowerment
can be a product of literacy learning (e.g., Box 7). Nonetheless,
very few studies have adequately measured more than attitudes
about empowerment, and it is difficult a priori to know how
to measure this variable. |
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Box
7. Teaching Nomads in India
The
Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra's (RLEK) adult
literacy programme, under the aegis of the National
Literacy Mission, works with the tribal community of
the forest dwelling nomadic Van Gujjars, who inhabit
the forests of the Siwalik range of mountains. For centuries
the community of the nomadic Van Gujjars has lived in
these forests and the Himalayan highland pastures where
they go during the summer months. They have developed
a sustainable relationship with their environment and
have become a part of its biodiversity; their lives
revolve around tending their buffaloes and their milk
products which dictates their nomadism. RLEK perceived
the illiteracy of the Van Gujjars to be the root cause
of their exploitation. To remedy the situation it started
a unique and innovative adult literacy programme for
them in the early 1990s. Copious illustrations were
used in the RLEK primers and these also related to their
physical background, thus constantly maintaining the
transparency of the visual medium. To prevent recidivism
the volunteer teachers trekked up and down with their
pupils during their annual transhumance. They also stayed
with them in the highland pastures. These two factors,
the development of the primers and the involvement of
the volunteer teachers, were the principal agents that
led to the success of the adult literacy programme.
This success was appraised through holding of 'saksharta
melas' (literacy fairs) where the neo-literates came
out from the forests in thousands to exhibit their newly
developed skills "I was reluctant to join because I
was afraid of the written word" told a young Van Gujjar
mother in her local tongue to a journalist, "now no
more". Adapted from Kaushal (1998).
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On the other hand, there is a growing research base on community
participation and the decentralization of management of literacy
and adult education programmes. One recent report on non-formal
education programmes in Africa provided considerable evidence
on the impact of such programmes for innovation and sustainability
(see Box 8). In addition, some agencies, such as the World Bank,
have embarked on a major effort to support NGOs as the providers
of service (as contrasted with national governments), in such
countries as Ghana, Senegal and Morocco. |
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Box
8. Local Capacity Building in the Sahel
Decentralization
movements in West Africa have created major new training
needs at the local level - needs which the existing
school system cannot meet on its own. Research conducted
in 40 communities in Mali, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Senegal,
and Niger, found remarkable examples of the assumption
of new functions and responsibilities by grassroots
actors. In Burkina Faso, for instance, local associations
have undertaken literacy instruction in areas lacking
primary schools; community organizations in other regions
have supported local investment, dam- and road-building,
and the establishment of maternal and child health centres.
Overall, 26 of the 40 sites studied were financially
self-supporting, 23 had taken over prime management
responsibility for all their own operations, and 19
were affiliated with some broader and autonomous federation.
The common fact among successful experiments in local-level
assumption of development responsibility seems to lie
in the close interweaving of training and the application
of knowledge - and thus in the development of practical
opportunities for individuals, collectivities, and associations
to deploy and gain tangible benefits from their newly-acquired
skills. The evidence indicates that the emergence of
genuinely empowering local initiatives and the further
development of this self-governance movement hinge on
a process of local "capitalization" along five convergent
dimensions: physical, financial, institutional, intellectual,
and cultural - which are closely interrelated. Mastery
of the technology of writing - whatever the written
code used - appears to constitute a threshold of institutional
development at the local level. There is a surprising
variety of latent knowledge and skill in communities,
resources which organizations need to build upon; and
it is most often literacy and non-formal education programmes
that serve to bring out this diverse human resource
and to prepare it for its new responsibilities in the
new social contract. Adapted from Easton (1998).
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| 3.3
Learning, instruction and materials design |
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While adult education programmes have typically emphasized acquisition
of basic literacy and numeracy skills, in recent years it has
been recognized that these must be integrated with a variety
of development objectives that enable learners to apply their
skills in the lifelong learning process. Innovative methodologies
are being devised which address "the social, cultural, and economic
development aspirations of learners" (UNESCO Institute for Education,
1997). |
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While the traditional teacher-led classroom is still the norm
in much of the world, particularly in developing countries,
significant progress has been made toward addressing adults'
multifaceted learning needs. In many instances authoritarian
methodologies and skills-based curricula, emphasizing copying
and memorization, have been replaced by a variety of student-centred
approaches. Facilitators are trained to draw out learners' own
knowledge and capitalize on their prior experience. In addition,
some literacy classes offer opportunities for adults to learn
how to incorporate traditional ways of knowing with basic education
skills that will help lead them into fuller participation in
the modern world. Programmes such as REFLECT (see Box 9) take
a bottom-up approach to curriculum and materials design, requiring
learner input from the very inception and allowing significant
learner control over the direction and conduct of literacy classes.
The success of such programmes in encouraging community activism
and alleviation of poverty has generated interest in many countries
throughout the developing world. |
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Box
9. Community Development in El Salvador
In late 1993, ActionAid (UK) began a two-year research
project to explore possible uses of Participatory Rural
Appraisal (PRA) techniques within adult literacy programmes.
This led to the development of the REFLECT approach
(Regenerated Freirean Literacy through Empowering Community
Techniques), which seeks to build on the theoretical
framework developed by Paolo Freire while providing
a practical methodology. Notable features of the REFLECT
approach include the absence of pre-printed materials
such as textbooks or primers; instead each circle of
learners develops its own literacy materials through
construction of maps, matrices, calendars and diagrams
which represent local realities and afford learners
the opportunity to systematize their existing knowledge
through detailed analysis of issues with immediate relevance
to their lives. Learners implemented new soil management
and planting techniques, adopted new methods of pesticide
and fertilizer use, undertook ongoing study of local
soils and construction of conservation structures. Also,
learners commented on the value of the knowledge they
had gained regarding recent peace agreements relating
to land reform, because they could directly apply their
knowledge not only to accessing land but also to applying
newly-learned agricultural techniques to make it more
productive. Discussions in the REFLECT "literacy circles"
led directly to collective action at the community level
and contributed to community participation in community
organizations. Through group construction of a natural
resource map, learners examined the local water problem,
after which they organized to obtain funds for water
tanks from a national NGO. There was a dramatic change
in learners' involvement in community organizations,
as several took up formal positions of responsibility
in the local cooperative, credit committee, women's
group, and education committee, all within a year of
participating in the literacy programme. Adapted from
Archer and Cottingham (1996).
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Important linkages between ongoing literacy programmes and post-literacy
have been made through the direct involvement of learners in
the development of literacy materials relevant to current issues
of, for example, health, agriculture, technology, or income-generation.
Not only do learners have the opportunity to apply their basic
skills while still under the guidance of facilitators in the
programme, but they take leadership roles in strengthening the
learning environment for themselves and their fellow citizens.
Some programmes employing learners in writing materials in the
mother tongues of historically marginalized people have also
been instrumental in dramatic increases in ethnic pride, political
solidarity, and citizen participation. |
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In countries undergoing major political and economic transformations,
adult basic education and literacy programmes are increasingly
called on to link the non-formal to the formal education sectors,
through professional development, post-literacy, and work-related
instruction. This linkage requires diversification of instructional
content as well as methodology, and may incorporate new technologies
(as described below). One important area that is in need of
further innovation is that of improved concatenation in materials
development and production between formal and non-formal education
domains. For too long the formal and non-formal sectors have
been producing materials that are of little use to either sector,
when better coordination can have multiple benefits. |
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| 3.4
Gender and family |
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Of the areas in greatest need of innovation, there is none higher
than that of literacy for women and within the family. This
stems from the widely perceived need for greater literacy among
women, and the reduction of the gender disparity discussed earlier.
Some governments and agencies have made commitments to women's
literacy programmes without fully understanding what would make
a women's programme different from that of a male-oriented programme.
One of the most obvious distinctions is that, in LDCs especially,
women are most often found as caretakers with small children
near by (whether the women are the biological parents or not).
This simple demographic fact is widely known, but relatively
few literacy and adult education planners have taken this dimension
into account. One programme that has is MOCEF, which offers
a mother-child literacy programme in Turkey (see Box 10). |
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Box
10. Mother-Child Literacy in Turkey
Developed
from a 10-year research project by Bogazici University
in Turkey, the MOCEF Mother-Child Education Programme
functions as a home-based intervention project aiming
to provide early enrichment to young children and literacy
education for their mothers. Such a multipurpose programme
assists in motivating learners to participate and incorporate
learning objectives into everyday life. The MOCEF target
group is mothers of 6-year-olds, who meet for 25 weeks,
approximately three hours per week, beginning with group
discussions on child development, health, nutrition,
and creative play activities, continuing with classes
focusing on discipline, parent-child interaction, and
expressing feelings. MOCEF's educational programme for
women living in low-income areas of Turkey has graduated
some 9000 former illiterates since 1995. It is based
on an innovative curriculum based on the life of an
illiterate woman living in a large city in Turkey. Recent
studies comparing the effectiveness of this innovative
curriculum to the traditional or "classic" courses offered
by the Ministry of Education show substantial advantages
for the MOCEF participants. Researchers attribute the
programme's success to the sensitivity of instructors
and materials designers to the needs of the women in
the programme. This
has led to an integrated curriculum design incorporating
not only basic decoding but also word-recognition and
immediate, functional application of literacy skills,
as well as exercises emphasizing comprehension of text
and critical thinking. Adapted from: Goksal (1999).
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As noted earlier, literacy (and illiteracy) are embedded within
cultural situations. For a "women's literacy" programme to be
effective, it is essential to understand the aspects of women's
lives that might be affected by literacy and adult education
programmes, as well as the consequences of those programmes.
Understanding these complex dimensions, while taking into account
social and political realities, has posed many problems over
the years. Nonetheless, the past decade has seen a number of
useful examples of women's literacy programmes (see Box 11,
for example). |
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Box
11. Promoting Women's Literacy in Nepal
Women
have traditionally had a very low rate of literacy in
Nepal, one of the world's poorest countries. Literacy
levels for adult women had risen from about 12% in 1981
to about 22% in 1990 and 28% in 1996, still considerably
below the 35% reported for adult men. The Women's Empowerment
Programme, though basic literacy, legal literacy, and
economic participation activities, was designed to increase
women's literacy, improve the legal environment for
females, and encourage women's economic participation
in the market economy. Eight international partner organizations
carried out one or more of these programmes through
Nepalese NGOs in 28 districts of the country. The programmes
were based on the notion that women's education and
empowerment enables them to become effective agents
of change in their households and communities, which
in turn enhances the well-being of their families and
society at large. It was found that women who had participated
in the programmes reported an increase in self-confidence
and greater autonomy within their daily lives, and that
those who had participated showed greater involvement
in the care of children, reproductive management, and
how family income is spent (76% of women surveyed reported
using income to alleviate economic hardship in their
households). Increases were found in women's involvement
in collective community activities and social issues.
Participants surveyed 10 years after taking the literacy
classes were found to be still engaged in social actions
and income-generating activities, even more than those
who had only recently begun attending literacy classes.
Adapted from USAID (1998
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| 3.5
Multi-sectoral issues of health, agriculture and commerce |
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Literacy and numeracy skills are utilized in many life contexts
even though most BLC instruction takes place in organized instructional
settings. A major challenge rests in determining the ways that
literacy can be fostered and utilized in everyday work settings.
From a policy perspective, more needs to be known about how
literacy education can be infused into the significant development
work of other sectors, such as health education and agricultural
extension. |
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For example, there is growing support for use of the idea of
a comprehensive "service centre" to provide basic educational
training to other sectors' workers. Relatively few examples
of this approach have been attempted, and little is known about
their potential impact. In the health sector, literacy and health
information (especially as a result of the HIV/AIDS epidemic)
have been increasingly put together (see Box 12). |
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Box
12. Women, Health and Literacy Education in Senegal
The
TOSTAN Basic Education Programme in Senegal was developed
by a team of villagers and non-formal education specialists
to improve the educational situation of villagers, particularly
women. Its goals are not only to reduce illiteracy,
but also to help the population achieve health and self-development
through the use of adapted educational materials. TOSTAN
means "breakthrough" in Wolof, the language spoken by
approximately 70% of the Senegalese people. In addition
to providing rural people with the opportunity to obtain
basic education in their own language, the two-year
programme also integrates elements of traditional culture
into the curriculum and promotes community ownership
and problem-solving to improve living conditions in
the villages. The programme includes a module on the
use of Oral Rehydration Solution (ORS), which prevents
the dehydration caused by diarrhoea, a frequent cause
of death among young children in Senegal. The steps
to mix and administer the ORS are taught using diverse
active learning techniques, including charting and demonstrating
the method, and playing a card game to help participants
understand the elements for making the solution as well
as the negative practices that can lead to diarrhoea
and dehydration. The facilitator also engages the learners
in discussion about these issues, which constitute a
problem they deal with often in their everyday lives.
As a result of these teaching methods, learners plan
strategies based on what they have learned in the programme
that will improve their communities' health conditions.
Adapted from: TOSTAN (1996).
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| 3.6
Post-literacy and income-generation |
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Many countries with longstanding literacy programs (e.g. India)
are now increasingly concerned with the "what comes next" issue,
after elementary basic skills are taught. Often called the "post-literacy"
aspect of adult education, this question follows directly on
the earlier discussion of changing standards of literacy for
changing societies. One way to deal with this issue is to try
to work out a set of skills standards for the formal and non-formal
sectors, as has been in process in South Africa (Box 13). |
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Box
13. Adult Basic Education and Training in South Africa.
In the new South Africa adult literacy work is conceptualized
as "basic skills" or "generic skills" training and is
seen as the starting point of a programme of Adult Basic
Education and Training which is meant to have equivalence
to the ten years of formal schooling to which children
are now entitled. Learners currently in classes are
encouraged to write national exams in accordance with
the levels, standards and outcomes specified by the
National Qualifications Framework (NQF). However, recent
research in South Africa has shown that unschooled people
do not necessarily see themselves as "illiterate", even
if they have not been to school. Many poorly schooled
South Africans attach value to their own "common-sense"
or "practical" ways of accomplishing a range of activities
in their lives, and they often see their own procedures
and skills as being more direct and reliable than "school
knowledge". Similarly, it is apparent that literacy
is a significant part of the activities of many people
who have not been formally taught to read and write.
There is evidence both in South Africa and elsewhere
that unschooled workers develop complex task-related
skills over time that allow them to operate with efficiency,
including in such literacy-linked activities as making
judgments in relation to volume, quantity and cost,
for example, and in interpreting diagrams that include
literacy. Thus, a focus on the conventional transmission
of standard literacy in adult classrooms is bound to
lag further and further behind the complexity of social
forms of communication as they develop within communities
undergoing dramatic change. The message of such a perspective
is clear: alternatives to centrally designed programmes
will help to encourage the diversity of meanings which
adults create from texts and situations in a post-literacy
environment. Adapted from Prinsloo and Breier (1996).
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Similarly, the post-literacy question is also tied with income
generation. This is not just the case in policy makers' minds,
but also in the minds of many adult learners. After all, why
should they take valuable time away from other activities for
a literacy programme if it is not going to lead to some tangible
benefit. Increasingly, literacy and adult education planners
are no longer content to restrict programming to instructional
content, but are further trying to see how instruction can lead
to concrete benefits for the learners (see, for example, Box
14). |
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Box
14. Income Generation in Laos
After
years of war and isolation, the Lao People's Democratic
Republic is undergoing widespread economic and political
reforms, in the process of opening up to the outside
world. In the countryside, however, the rural poor and
especially ethnic minority groups have little opportunity
to participate in the new nation. Providing formal education
for these disadvantaged communities is made particularly
difficult by low literacy rates in the myriad indigenous
languages used by these groups, some of which are not
written, and the inability to speak, read, or write
Lao. The Minority Women's Literacy and Basic Skills
project has implemented a non-formal education programme
to provide a means for disadvantaged minority women
ages 15-45 years to learn in one or two years the basic
elements of the primary curriculum. In addition to functional
literacy in Lao, women are trained in critical life
skills and trade-related activities, such as weaving
and sewing, health and hygiene, agriculture and gardening,
and principles of modern income generation. The women
are encouraged to develop and market their traditional
regional handicrafts and employ modern designs and sales
strategies. In addition to income generation, the women's
interaction in the marketplace expands their opportunities
to participate in modern Laotian society. Another benefit
of this approach is to use interest in money-making
activities as a vehicle for introducing literacy and
numeracy, which has benefits in other aspects of daily
life. Villagers who did not previously see any benefit
in learning Lao took an interest when they saw they
could apply their literacy skills in selling their products.
The project has attracted the interest of the Laotian
government
as well, lending support to non-formal education approaches
and strengthening the government's efforts at decentralization.
For while the Project could not directly reach all the
disadvantaged women of Laos, it has helped to strengthen
the capacity in the country to expand non-formal education
to marginalized populations and ethnic minorities. Adapted
from UNESCO (1997).
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| 3.7
Technology and distance education |
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There are new and exciting ideas concerning the utility of technology
for literacy and adult education provision for out of school
youth and adults. Much of this work is still in its infancy
and evolving very rapidly. Technological solutions to instruction
- known as computer based education (CBE) or computer assisted
instruction (CAI) - have been used, primarily in industrialized
nations, for more than a decade, and the presence of microcomputers
in the classrooms of schools has continued to grow at an exponential
rate (Wagner & Hopey, 1999). With adult instruction, growth
of CBE and CAI has recently begun to show similar growth patterns,
but it remains limited to a few sectors in a limited number
of countries. Especially promising is the use of CBE and CAI
in second language/literacy instruction. Another use of technology
for literacy entails telecommunications networks, such as the
Internet, for distance education. Now available in all countries
of the world (though with widely varying penetration), the Internet
offers tremendous possibilities to improve the communications
infrastructure for literacy and adult education programmes within
and across countries. Broadly speaking, distance education -
using radio, television and telecommunications - is likely to
see a dramatic growth in the decade to come, though some programmes
have built a track record of over a decade already (see Box
15). |
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Box
15. Gobi Women and Distance Education in Mongolia
In the face of major political change, survival may
depend on each individual's opportunity and ability
to learn new skills and practices. But in a country
with a widely-scattered population and few resources,
how can instruction effectively reach those in need?
Non-formal distance learning may prove crucial in helping
populations in such circumstances to survive. The 1990
transition from communist to democratic economy devastated
the rural population of Mongolia, particularly the nomadic
people of the Gobi Desert. In the wake of this change,
a tremendous burden of labour and management of livestock
fell to the women and those children kept out of school
to help. Women's traditional roles now included taking
care of the animals and using meagre resources to produce
marketable goods, requiring skills relied on 60 years
earlier that were now unfamiliar, forgotten, or in need
of improvement. The Gobi Women's Project, started in
the early 1990s, is a non-formal distance learning programme
utilizing print and radio lessons to communicate and
renew a number of survival and income-generating skills
important to the nomadic women of the Gobi Desert. The
project provided radios as well as batteries for them
and relevant booklets. Learning materials were supplemented
by newsletters, demonstration materials, and information
sheets. Teachers travelled to the women's homes to check
their progress and help them with any specific problems.
The programme covered such topics as health, survival
and income generation, business, as well as literacy
and numeracy. Participants reported that not only were
they satisfied with the new skills they acquired through
the programme, but they also enjoyed the interaction
with teachers and other learners and gained a sense
of self-sufficiency within their environment. Adapted
from Robinson (1997).
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As many have pointed out, the cost of technology has been until
relatively recently too high even for industrialized countries'
educational programmes, not to mention the developing countries.
But the price-to-power ratio (the relative cost, for example,
of a unit of computer memory or the speed of processing) continues
to drop sharply. While the cost of the average microcomputer
has remained constant for about a decade, the power of the year
2000 computer is 1000 times greater than that produced by a
PC in 1980. If present trends continue, the capabilities for
CAI and CBE literacy instruction and for telecommunications
are likely to go far beyond the elementary approaches of today.
One of the challenges over the coming years will be how to achieve
the economical use of technology for education in developing
countries. Various opportunities are now becoming apparent.
The International Literacy Institute (ILI) has, for example,
developed a CD-ROM based teacher training tool for adult educators
which is now in the process of being adapted to local and regional
needs in a number of countries. On the cutting edge of technology,
the ILI's sister organization, the National Center on Adult
Literacy, has been helping the U.S. Department of Education
develop online instructional and training tools for adult educators
and learners in the United States (see Box 16). |
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Box
16. LiteracyLink: Internet-based Adult Basic Education
in the United States
In
1996, the U.S. Department of Education committed five
years of support to PBS Adult Learning Service, the
National Center on Adult Literacy at the University
of Pennsylvania, and Kentucky Educational Television
to build, for the first time, an instructional system
using the latest in video, on-line, and computer technology
to help adults receive literacy instruction and gain
high school diplomas or equivalencies in the United
States - in a program known as LiteracyLink. This program
is designed to serve the more than 40 million Americans
who require basic skills instruction. As an on-line
lifelong learning system, it incorporates the latest
Internet technologies (Java and streaming video), video
technologies (digital, closed-circuit, broadcast, satellite),
and computer technologies (digitized audio and video,
computer-generated graphics, interactive multimedia,
and text). LiteracyLink has two major goals: (1) increase
the access of adults to learning opportunities that
will enable them to obtain their high school diplomas,
and (2) improve the quality of instruction available
to individuals and adult literacy providers nationwide
through enhanced resources and expanded staff development.
As of late 1999, thousands of adult educators in dozens
of sites across the U.S. have participated in the teacher
training part of the project, which incorporates an
electronic community of teachers, a series of on-line
workshops with professional certification, a collection
of web sites that have been evaluated for adult learning,
and a database of Internet-based lesson plans. Adapted
from Wagner and Hopey, 1999.
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