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 SOME CONSIDERATIONS ON LITERACY AND EDUCATIONAL POLICIES WITHIN THE GLOBAL CONTEXT OF THE CHANGE OF THE CENTURY

An interpretation from a national and regional perspective

Imelda Arana Sáenz

Centre for the Study of Education, Women, and Culture

Women’s Popular Education Network (REPEM) Colombia     

Dealing with literacy in a time when said word seems to have lost validity, at least in Colombia, due to the very few references available on the matter from educational authorities, has implied consulting key documents that, as members of the Women’s Popular Education Network (REPEM), have allowed us to get to know the global context of education, and be part of the different groups that fight for the full right to education for every man and every woman. By reviewing said documents, one feels the need to disseminate, study, and evaluate those aspects related to government commitments and the reports on managements and achievements of the government on the matter. The following paragraphs refer to some considerations on the international context that must be taken into account by every organization engaged in the preparation of the Sixth International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA VI) and participating in the different international developments and agreements on adult education and literacy.    

The Reality of Literacy in Relation to Meeting Educational Needs in Colombia 

The basic needs of the majority of the population have been seriously affected by structural adjustment policies, a central component of the worldwide adoption of the neoliberal development model that, during the 80s and 90s, marked the reduction of government’s social expenses. During those years, government intervention in education in Colombia was limited to an interest on basic education for 5-11-year-old children; education meaning “access” to school, amid a growing decline in the quality of the schools and the education service offered by the government. 

Within this context, and despite of the fact that the most progressive education laws were passed in the country during the 90s, many factors caused a reduction or stagnation of educational efforts. These factors include: a) an increase in poverty rate among the population, which resulted in the overemployment of adults and many minors in order to complete a minimum income for the maintenance of their families; this has left many boys and girls without any sense of direction, without proper protection and care, and without the appropriate nutrition and socioemotional support to exercise their right to a decent education; b) a reduction in investments on buildings, academic support infrastructure, and education materials; c) a decrease in teachers’ salaries, a reduction in the quality of training and professional updating of male and female teachers, and a drop in the value of the teaching career. Within the framework of the processes of globalization and expansion of technological and communication innovations, all these factors have contributed to make the cultural gap deeper and have gone against the innovative opening of the education reform issued under the new Constitutional Charter (1991), based on the acknowledgment of population diversity, participative democracy, and, to a great extent, protection of individual and collective rights.

Education for youth and adults was substantially affected during those adjustment processes, and the “literacy” and “community education” programs that underwent significant improvements in the 70s and 80s, were dismantled by the Ministry of National Education and the Secretaries of Education of the different departments and town councils. All these programs had the professional advice and support of popular managers that worked based on the “Popular Education” schools that were enjoying a boom in Latin America and the Caribbean. These gave rise to the creation of organizations which, having their roots in the popular tradition, considered education as a “practice of individual freedom” and “social liberation” for the people, influenced by the literacy experiences in Cuba and Nicaragua, and the ideas of Paulo Freire, with a great influence of catholic groups sympathetic to the liberation theology. Both the Latin American Council of Adult Education (CEAAL) and the Women’s Popular Education Network (REPEM) have strong roots in these movements.

The Popular Education schools in Latin America and the Caribbean were able to somehow influence literacy policies and programs within the region. In Colombia, this was combined with national education services on radio and TV, developed within the framework of the Alliance for Progress, reaching remote areas of the country. There was a significant production of innovative materials and practices, registered in handbooks, magazines, educational materials, and textbooks. Some public universities, like the National Pedagogical University (Universidad Pedagógica Nacional), developed academic programs on community education. Government decisions to reduce the size of the State as well as its social efforts, have cut some valuable adult literacy and education experiences which are essential to meet the educational needs neglected by the different governments. These are experiences that would be worth resuming, evaluating, and renewing when preparing CONFINTEA VI.   

The Reality of Literacy within the Context of the International Community

This succinctly described Colombian reality coincided with extensive debates and plans of action on education by UNESCO as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The World Education Forums carried out in Jomtien (1990) and Dakar (2000), and the Fifth International Conference on Adult Education -CONFINTEA V- in Hamburg (1997), showed the international community concerns in relation to the governments’ inability, especially in the “least” developed (poor) countries, and the lack of interest of those highly industrialized (rich) countries, to offer a minimum education to millions of boys, girls, and adults. Goals for the last decade of the 20th century included: reduction of illiteracy by half; universal education with gender equality for every child in the world; and substantial improvement of learning results. The purpose was to begin the 21st century with a world population educated and able to access the new knowledge brought along by the technical-scientific revolution.  

The analysis carried out by the governments of the different countries and the financial agencies participating in the mentioned world forums and conferences, showed the existence of serious difficulties and limitations in the least developed countries to offer their  people the right to a basic education. The burden of foreign debt, the meagre results regarding economic growth within poor countries, and the resulting increase in poverty, malnutrition, and child mortality, as well as the conflicts and armed confrontations in many regions of the world, were considered as the causes of the main backward steps in basic education during the 80s in the least developed countries, while in some industrialized countries reduction of public expenses contributed to education decline.

Goal 4 of the Jomtien 1990-2000 Framework of Action, that proposed a reduction in adult illiteracy rate by 2000 to half of the 1990 rate, stressing women literacy in order to modify  gender inequality in literacy rates, was reviewed both in the mid-term meeting between Jomtien and Dakar, and in the 2000 World Forum. It was clear that the global illiteracy rate was the same, while the number of children not included in the education system increased. The 90s were virtually lost to literacy, both initial and for young and adult people. 

The Jomtien World Conference had an influence on the conceptual debate on literacy. There was a change of perspective, and literacy was not considered as a simple reading and writing learning process, but as basic education, from the concept of “basic learning needs” that “include both tools that are essential for learning (reading and writing, oral expression, arithmetic, problem solving) and the basic contents themselves (theory and practice, values and attitudes) that people need to survive, develop their skills, live and work with dignity, fully participate in development, improve their quality of life, make informed decisions, and continue to learn”. On this regard, the 1996 report of UNESCO’s International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century http://www.lpp-uerj.net/olped/documentos/0439.pdf reaffirmed the importance of education for lifelong human and social development. CONFINTEA V has stated that adult education is essential to face the problems of the contemporary world. Education is then conceived as “lifelong education.” 

Thus, the Hamburg summit called for Education for Youth and Adults (EPJA) to “promote skills and abilities of civil society to face environmental and social development problems; promote programs that integrate sustainable development learning with local knowledge, and the strengthening of citizen actions to search for new forms of development of the economic and social life.” Within the Latin American context, the Preparatory Regional Conference carried out in Brasilia pointed out the same idea, emphasizing on the need to achieve a political impact so that governments “adopt the international agreements executed in the different summits organized during the decade.” 

The World Conference considered the existence of some 1,000 million people that hadn’t learnt how to read and write, and of millions of people that had learnt but couldn’t use these abilities any more, even in the most prosperous countries. On this regard, it said literacy was key to achieve a better participation in the social, cultural, political, and economic life, which must be related to the socioeconomic and cultural context, and is a process that allows people to effectively function within society and contribute to shape it.

Theme 2 of the Hamburg plan of action proposed to “improve the conditions and quality of adult learning” (http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001161/116114so.pdf) pag 26 and made a commitment to: create conditions for the expression of adults’ demand for learning; ensure accessibility to education and its quality; open schools, colleges, and universities to adult learners; improve the conditions for the professional development of adults’ educators and facilitator; improve the relevance of initial education within a lifelong learning perspective; promote systematic research and action-oriented research on adult learning; and recognize the new role of the state and social partners. Theme 3 deals with “Ensuring the universal right to literacy and basic education”, with a commitment to: linking literacy to the social, cultural and economic development aspirations of learners; improving the quality of literacy programmes by building links with traditional an minority knowledge and cultures; enriching the literacy environment. Themes 5 and 6 were related to Gender Equity and the need to “Establish policies, objectives, and goals that improve equality of conditions, well-being, and opportunities for women…”.

UNESCO designated the 2003-2012 decade the Literacy Decade to focus on how little was achieved by the international community in relation to the goals of the Education for All (EFA) and the Education for Youth and Adults (EPJA) http://www.unesco.cl/medios/biblioteca/documentos/ept_jomtien_declaracion_mundial.pdf, because, according to the statistics, the number of 860 million of illiterates, 500 million of which are women, hasn’t changed since the 90s. This notwithstanding the progresses made when halfway through the 20th century more than half of the world population was illiterate and the world rate decreased to 23% in 1995, but considering the seriousness of the situation in some countries in Africa and Asia, where the ratio of illiterate people was estimated at 70%. UNESCO estimates that, if current trends continue, by 2010 illiterate adult population shall represent 830 million people and the portion would only decrease from 23% to 17%. This means that one out of six people will continue to be illiterate.

A Renewed Vision on Literacy 

According to UNESCO, the Literacy for All slogan, promoted within the framework of the Literacy Decade, involves:
a) a renewed vision and commitment by national governments and societies, local communities, and international agencies;
b) transcending ages, strengthening lifelong and intergenerational learning;
c) social inclusion of children and adults, girls and boys, women and men, rural and urban areas, countries in the South and in the North;
d) effective and sustainable literacy levels, provision of appropriate conditions and opportunities to educate, use and develop that competence in the contacts with the family, the community, the workplace, the school system, and the media;
e) active policies and collective efforts to get educated persons and groups to make a significant use of said knowledge as a lifelong medium of expression, communication, and learning.

This renewed vision on literacy also requires renewed methods and mechanisms of operation, monitoring, and accountability for the results. Thus, the mentioned commitments propose:
a) integrating literacy to basic education and within the framework of the efforts to achieve an “Education for All”;
b) coordinating child and adult literacy, and learning in and out of the school system;
c) facing the literacy challenge of school education;
d) facing the literacy challenge of out-of-school education;
e) promoting positive literacy environments;
f) providing special attention to the development of literacy of the educators themselves;
g) strengthening literacy and general education among the parents;
h) disseminating available information and knowledge on literacy;
i) facing the structural problems that reproduce poverty and illiteracy.

Finally, there is a table comparing this new vision on literacy with the vision existing in the international community before Dakar 2000 and the Declaration of the Literacy Decade*. 

Literacy for All – A Renewed Vision

* Source: United Nations Literacy Decade – base document for consultation, June 2000

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