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ADULT
LITERACY
Notes for Discussions: ICAE Virtual Seminar in Preparation for Confintea VI
Prepared by Cecilia
Soriano
National Coodinator, ENet
Philippines with the ASPBAE Policy Team
Adult Literacy Challenge
The EFA Global Monitoring Report 2007 estimates that globally, there are 771
million adult illiterates and halving this number by 2015 --- Education for
All (EFA) Goal #4 is reportedly the most neglected EFA target. Women are
less literate than men: worldwide, only 88 adult women are considered
literate for every 100 adult men, with much lower numbers in low-income
countries. Independent civil society assessments such as the Education Watch
literacy mapping exercise of ASPBAE reveal that even these scandalously huge
numbers understate the full extent of the adult literacy deficit world-wide.
States recognize adult literacy as a turn-key strategy to generate income,
combat HIV-AIDs, lower maternal mortality and keep children and youth
perform better in schools. However, investments for non-formal education,
where adult literacy is located, remain at a meagre 1% of the total budget
for basic education and of poor quality. Further, while many Constitutions
guarantee the right to free and compulsory primary education, absent are
similar policies that ensure at least four years of literacy interventions
for adults who missed out on primary education.
To reach EFA Goal # 4, decisive actions until 2015 need to be taken in 12
countries in sub-Saharan Africa, South and West Asia, South East Asia and
the Pacific. To determine the magnitude of literacy deficit in each country,
understand impediments to acquiring needed literacy and to map out adult
literacy needs, the States need to do a tracking of illiterates. In most EFA
meetings, while countries were able to estimate literacy rates, they
expressed difficulty in adequately reaching out to adult illiterates because
of lack of data, constant mobility of adults and the inability --- in terms
of resources and competencies of national and local governments to do
community-based literacy assessment and mapping.
Globally, the average literacy rate has improved mainly due to proactive
adult literacy interventions of China, but the number of illiterates is
expected to increase as more and more youth (15 years and above) join the
fold of adult illiterates. Youth illiterates are both out-of-school and
those who finished certain level of schooling. ASPBAE’s Education Watch in
Papua New Guinea revealed “a crisis in quality of schools” where only 19% of
those who complete primary school are literate and only 23% of those who
complete secondary school are literate. This concern among the youth has
been raised in some countries as well like in Africa (thus the call for both
access and quality), South Asia and South East Asia.
The emerging contexts of migration, knowledge-based society, globalization
and the need to understand an international language, renewal of ethnic
identities and other events that require fast, accurate and text-based
information make imperative continuing adult literacy interventions.
Otherwise, adults, especially women in vulnerable sectors will remain at the
margins of and even totally excluded from development and democracy.
Quality of Adult Literacy
The diverse adult literacy strategies and innovations make it impossible to
standardize policies to define what constitutes a quality program. There is
at the same time an aversion towards standardization and one-size fit all
approach to adult literacy. The GCE instead came out with a set of 12
benchmarks that serves as guide posts for effective adult literacy programs.
Building on these benchmarks and to approach adult literacy as a “system” or
systems comparable to school system, implementing and enabling policies for
adult literacy may be scrutinized around 7 Ms.
(1)
1. MISSION This refers to an articulation of the framework and goals
of adult literacy translated into clear policy framework and measures of
success.
A review of a State’s articulation of what constitutes adult literacy
defines the boundaries by which it will be addressed by Governments. Most
States define literacy as basically the ability to read and write. The
definition is fairly straightforward but governments agree that the route to
acquiring literacy especially among adults necessitates going beyond
traditional letter recognition and/or phonetics. Countries recognize the
imperative to link literacy programs to life skills which makes EFA Goals 3
and 4 inextricably linked.
However, in the 18 measures of success of EFA goals only one refers to adult
literacy and this indicator has been limited to literacy rate defined as
reading and writing, which manifests the limited target of countries.
Civil Society Organizations like non-government organizations, self-help
organizations, corporate foundations and other non-state implementers have
defined adult literacy as the ability to use literacy skills to enable a
person to be economically productive and exercise his/her right to
participate meaningfully in the political life of a community. Many
innovations have combined literacy with enterprise development, livelihood
skills, women’s rights, sustainable agriculture, legal rights, environment
and other themes relevant to people’s lives. The breadth and depth of these
interventions, however, await the articulation of adult basic learning needs
and necessary measures of success.
2. MARGINALIZED Learners Who are the learners? What are their needs?
Most illiterates have been marginalized because of three factors 1) poverty
the inability to spend for their education and the opportunity costs of
studying 2) language the adequacy in speaking and listening in mother tongue
but the inadequacy in communicating in a regional, national or international
language and 3) remoteness, thus difficulty to access education.
Country policies need to make a clear investment and strategy policies to
reach out to these marginalized adults. Targeting relevant programs
necessitate the integration of literacy skills into specific needs and vice-versa.
Diagnostics of cognitive needs of marginalized learners is but a part of
defining learning needs. Understanding these needs in the context of
language, cultural norms and culture as a whole facilitates grounded
policies for adult literacy interventions. For example, women who have since
birth been moulded in a power arrangement where men dominate may need more
than six month program of rights awareness to fully develop capacities for
reading-writing, accessing-analyzing information and creating informed
decisions.
Similarly, programs that enable women to acquire literacy skills and
livelihood skills through mother tongue may eventually shift to a learning a
regional language that is most often use in markets and town.
3. MATERIALS and METHODS What are specific contents of adult literacy
programs? What curricula, lesson plans and learning materials need to be
developed towards achieving what literacy competencies?
Many governments and even NGOs have implemented a reading-writing-numeracy
literacy programs in the hope that after six months, adults are able to use
these into a subsequent livelihood project. In literacy programs in East
Timor, for example, women were able to successfully handle the livelihood
program, e.g. goat-raising but surprisingly did not acquire the targeted
literacy skills. Apparently, the women managed the livelihood project aided
by their own literacy. It is important to note that improving livelihood or
other life skills may not necessarily be mediated by symbols/scripts.
Speaking and listening are also essential literacy skills through which new
information may be learned, analyzed and put into action.
Keeping in mind that oral transfer of knowledge is the traditional way of
imparting knowledge, how can a program’s curricula build on people’s
existing literacy skills towards transitioning to reading and writing skills?
Defining curriculum and levels of competencies is not only to facilitate
better handling of adult literacy programs but is necessary to encourage
governments to enact policies that define bolder, concrete and achievable
literacy competencies based on people’s needs. This step is essential in the
oft-repeated advocacy to have literacy/learning systems of indigenous
peoples recognized, funded and translated into quality programs by
Governments.
What are principles and processes for learning in effective adult literacy
programs? The GCE reiterated that there are no magic lines to cross from
illiteracy to literacy and that learning is a continuous process. Therefore
there is a need for governments to invest in literacy environments whether
in non-formal and informal settings community learning centers, mobile
libraries, media-based learning materials and others. While governments have
reiterated the importance of informal learning, they have failed to
institute adequate materials of value for adult literacy through TV, radio
and other informal processes.
4. MENTORS Recognizing the difficult circumstances by which adult
have been historically denied access to education, mentors need to have
capacities for facilitating learning, a grasp of subject matter and core
competencies in organizing and motivating in a sustained manner adult
learning groups. Certified teachers that have been university-trained need
to acquire units in social work and/or community development. At the same
time, there should be a system of accrediting the competencies of community
educators with no formal training. Government should provide pathways to
build on and enrich the competencies of community educators.
In an inter-agency provision of adult literacy (e.g. health literacy that
may involve CSO, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Social Welfare, etc), staff
of extension offices of government agencies need to be equipped with
capacities for doing literacy work.
Most mentors work on voluntary basis and thus are not given enough
compensation for their dedication. Governments should aspire to provide at
least minimum wages to mentors from both government and non-government adult
literacy workers.
5. MEASURES Official literacy rates are based on self-reported
literacy assessment that often are not sound bases for crafting adult
literacy interventions
(2).
There has to be a move for countries to adopt better and actual literacy
testing to get reliable data on literacy gaps and needs.
There had been several discussions on the literacy outcomes but benchmarks
on processes for linking reading-writing to knowledge acquisition are issues
that remain to be developed. What are alternative ways of monitoring and
measuring adult literacy beyond paper and pencil tests of reading and
writing skills? Given the diverse and emerging contexts for learning, there
had been suggestions to shift to evaluation portfolio that consists of
materials done by participant to prove acquisition of a set of basic
learning competencies.
While there are governments open to evaluation portfolio, the practicality
of setting standards and tests for comparability of literacy outcomes across
learners from different geographic areas is deemed difficult and expensive.
At the same time, the capacities of educators or literacy facilitators to
use evaluation portfolio aided have yet to be developed. Ensuring literacy
assessment policies along the Delors’ four pillars of learning is a possible
area for partnership between the government, academe and non-government
organization implementers.
Financing and Governance
6. MONEY What resources do governments need to put in place for
effective adult literacy programs? While the framework is to provide
literacy beyond reading and reading, government resources for literacy are
limited to traditional literacy programs. Literacy with its myriad
components finds little support in parliament and executive department
because of what they perceive as elusive or unmeasured learning outcomes
especially in adults.
Adult literacy programs tend to be periodic, often implemented within a 6-month
cycle that for some, is later complemented by livelihood projects. One-shot
adult literacy projects need to be replaced by sustained and strategic,
sector-wide literacy programs. This will require investments for financing
implementation of long-term adult literacy programs accompanied by
documentation of local wisdom, development of materials, assessment measures,
building educator capacities, creating structures and management systems.
There has to be a campaign addressed to Parliaments to enable policies that
will ensure resources for strategic adult literacy programs complete with
institutionalized mechanisms and structures.
Government should primarily be responsible for ensuring adult literacy
programs for all. National government should take the lead while working
with Local governments. The current trend where national governments
concentrate on the school system while passing on the bulk of non-formal
education, and therefore adult literacy programs to local governments
creates inequitable funding to the detriment of poor, marginalized people
who mostly live in poor-resourced local governments.
7. MANAGEMENT AND MONITORING - In a regional workshop on Adult
literacy organized by ASPBAE in November 2007, NGOs are found to be working
independently of government and have failed to present their achievements to
government as contributions to EFA. One recommendation in the workshop is to
balance between autonomy, recognition and collaboration. There has to be
framework for coordination and when possible, a collaborative framework for
working between government and non-government adult literacy providers.
Civil society groups need not be confined to service provision ---
implementing and managing their own literacy programs. They need to engage
national and local governments in formulating, implementing and monitoring
policies to push for the eradication of adult illiteracy. To ensure that
policies are sustained beyond the term of incumbent government officials,
structures and mechanisms for continuing adult literacy should be made
functional (where there are present structures) and/or organized at
different levels.
_______________
(1) The 7Ms framework was an instrument
that came out in one of the sessions of E-Net Philippines’ (Dis)Courses in
Alternative Learning System. It is a attempt at systematically documenting
and/or analyzing civil society’s community education into a “system/s” of
learning. The effort was borne out of a government’s critique that noted the
lack of harmonization in CSO’s education work in the Philippines.
(2) Using actual literacy tests, ASPBAE’s
Education Watch in Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia (with
E-Net for Justice Indonesia) revealed that literacy rates in these countries
that are lower than official figures (based on self-reporting census).
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