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4.
CAPACITY BUILDING, PROFESSIONALIZATION AND AGENCY SUPPORT
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| 4.1
National capacity building |
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Capacity building is at the heart of the renewal of effective
and high quality work in literacy and adult education. Unfortunately,
the fields of literacy and adult education tend to get a very
small share of resources when it comes to national capacity
building, as the largest share of new resources since the Jomtien
conference has focused on building capacity for primary schooling.
This is unfortunate, since the types of innovations described
in this paper are dependent on enlightened, skilled and motivated
professionals, including policy makers, programme directors,
specialists, MIS technicians and so forth. This kind of capacity
remains very thinly dispersed in most of the countries most
in need of improved literacy programming. |
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In this effort to improve the quality of literacy work, there
is a need to support national, regional, and international networks
that enable literacy and adult educators from diverse settings
and types of programmes to form communities for generating and
disseminating knowledge in the field. As part of this effort,
the International Literacy Institute and UNESCO have been offering,
since 1997, an annual month-long international Summer Literacy
Training Programme in Philadelphia, to which professionals from
more than 70 countries have participated (for more information,
consult the ILI's website at: www.literacyonline.org). |
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One area of special importance for building capacity is that
of local universities and institutes, as well local and regional
NGOs. Indeed, NGOs, as noted elsewhere, are playing an increasingly
important role in literacy provision, and so their involvement
in capacity building is essential. Until local capacity building
can be achieved, the field is likely to remain fragmented; amount
of international assistance can be effective without a local
capacity to build upon. This is surely one of the highest priorities
for improving literacy work in any country. |
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| 4.2
Professional development and training |
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The committed involvement of professionals is necessary for
any system-wide change in educational services. As noted earlier,
a major constraint in attempts to innovate is voluntary (or
near-voluntary) role of many literacy workers, leading to high
turnover and, at times, low motivation. Clearly, with limited
resources, the lack of full-time professionals makes it difficult
to carry out meaningful professional development. Thus, there
is a major need to develop systems and capacities that enable
staff to engage in professional 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. |
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| 4.3
External agency support |
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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 from its
inception and over the decades. In addition, 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, UNESCO's regional offices have
organized a wide variety of events on literacy and non-formal
education, even within the constraints of very tight budgets.
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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 youth (particularly girls and young
women). |
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In most developing countries, it is probably accurate to say
that there are as many out-of-school youth and adults with low
basic skills as there are school-age children in school. Yet,
on average, the resources spent on NFE programmes for such out-of-school
youth and adults rarely exceed 5% of the national educational
budget in any country. A similar statement can be made about
the support from most donor agencies, which provide the bulk
of resources for new projects in education in LDCs. With so
little invested by such donor agencies, it is no wonder that
renovation and innovation are difficult to achieve. However,
given the increased emphasis of the World Bank and others on
'poverty reduction' and the centrality of literacy in achieving
this goal, it would seem likely that external agency support
of literacy and adult education would grow substantially over
the next decade or so, as it has in the OECD countries during
this past decade. |
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