Editors: Madhu Singh and Luz María Castro Mussot Meyer-Bisch Publishers: UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning and Mexican National Institute for Adult Education (INEA/CONEVyT) Year of publication: 2007 (first edition – bilingual edition) No. of pages: 597 Size: 170 x 223 mm ISBN: 978-92-820-1151-5 Price: €20.00

The book contains the results of the conference South-South Policy Dialogue on Quality Education for Adults and Young People that took place in Mexico City in 2005. Fourteen articles were written by participants who presented their national programmes from the governmental perspective, which were reflected in the literacy policies, but there were also important contributions on basic education and competence recognition.

For many, it was the very first chance to talk among equals with similar educational needs. The question of quality education for adults and youth was high on the agenda. From Mexico’s use of ICT-based learning for indigenous people, to South Africa’s national qualitifications framework, and from Brazil’s Alfabetizado that centers on inter sectoral agreements with other Ministries, to India’s Continuing Education Centers for empowering the masses in Indian villages, the strategies presented here show that the countries of the South can greatly benefit from the kind of dialogue that took place at this conference in 2005.

Accent was put on the experiences of four countries that were considered as locomotives of development in the field: Brazil, India, South Africa and Mexico. Nevertheless, dialogue was also enriched by information provided by other African, Asian and Latin American countries: Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Thailand, China, Guatemala, Nicaragua and the Arab States as a whole.

It is significant that the contents are being made available to both an English and a Spanish speaking audience. Literacy and basic education from a lifelong learning perspective are pre-eminent social challenges in Latin American countries, and many countries in the region are in the forefront of innovative programmes for adults and youth, which are worthy of sharing across continents.

The book received wide publicity at a launching ceremony on Literacy Day in Mexico City. The co-editors, Madhu Singh and Luz-María Castro, pointed out that literacy is more than reading and writing, “it is a process of reflection and reconstruction centred around experience”. They also pointed out that the book is not meant to be seen as a comparative study of competing educational projects. Rather, the emphasis was on a plurality of educational programmes with each national programme including a constellation of institutions, social actors, ideologies, theories of knowledge and attendant pedagogies that shape local cultural practice. It provides rich data for comparative and international education.

The publication is the result of a collaboration between UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) and the Mexican National Institute for Adult Education (INEA/CONEVyT) reflecting their common vision that there can be no sustainable democratic development without access to education for all.