| Path: Home > Book Shop > Journals > Convergence > Volume 37 Number 3 |
[ Up ] [ Vol. 39 Number 1 ] [ Vol. 38 Number 4 ] [ Vol. 38 Number 3 ] [ Vol. 37 Number 4 ] [ Vol. 37 Number 3 ] [ Vol. 37 Number 2 ] [ Volume 37 Number 1 ] [ Volume 36 Number 3/4 ] [ Volume 36 Number 2 ] [ Vol. 36 Number 1 ]
Convergence: Volume 37 Number 3
Special Issue:
Education For All: Putting Adults Back In The Frame
Contents
 | Guest
Editorial: EFA and Adult Learning |
Policy ad Conceptual Issues
| Lifelong Learning: A New
Momentum and a New Opportunity for Adult Basic Learning and Education (ABLE)
in the South |
|
Writing Wrong: Conundrums of
Literacy and Human Rights |
International Agencies
| Rights, Obligations, Priorities:
Where Does Adult Literacy Rank? |
|
EFA Includes Education and
Literacy for All Adults Everywhere |
|
NGO Perspectives on Adult
Literacy |
Regional Studies
|
Realising Rights: Poverty and
Adult Literacy in a Globalising Arab Region |
|
Reflections from Latin America
for Strengthening Youth and Adult Educational Policy and Process |
|
Making Space for Adult Education
in Independent Namibia |
|
Adult Learning in the Asia
Pacific Region: It’s Time to Walk the Walk |
_______________________________________
Editorial
Guest Editorial – EFA and Adult Learning
Alan Rogers, Guest Editor
Since the discussions that preceded the international conference at Jomtien in Thailand in 1990 and ever since then, the term EFA (Education for All) has passed into the international vocabulary, not just among the so-called ‘developing’ countries but in ‘Western’ societies also. It is a powerful word, not just in policy and donor funding but also in indicating a programme and a practice (GMR, 2002).
EFA Becomes EFAC
During the discussions that led up to the international meeting in Jomtien and at the World Conference that launched the ambitious programme of EFA, the provision of literacy and basic education for adults was urged as strongly as the provision of primary schooling for all children. The eradication of illiteracy from the world; the righting of the intolerable injustice that some 800 million rising to some 950 million adults (the majority of them women) were defined as ‘illiterate’; the impossibility of achieving universal primary education (UPE) for the children whose parents were illiterate; the alleged additional benefits of adult learning in the fields of health and gender equality – all of these and other arguments inspired the decision-makers to urge the provision of literacy and basic education for adults as an integral part of EFA. Education for All meant education for all, young and old.
But over the first decade of the programme, Education for All became Education for All Children, EFA became EFAC. Gradually the adult dimension (never in reality very strong) diminished and almost entirely died away. The reasons for this have never been fully explored. Some considerations can be mentioned, none of them of course applicable to all contexts, highly localised as they were. There is some (admittedly anecdotal) evidence that a number of governments have felt frustrated that EFA has been interpreted by international agencies such as the World Bank and multilateral and bilateral donors as referring to the formal education system and does not include (in practice, whatever was stated in theory) early child development1 and adult learning. Equally, some governments who had to implement EFA felt that the resources available led them to make decisions about priorities – and children always came top of these priorities. It must be remembered that governments were executing goals and trying to meet targets that had been imposed on them by international agencies from outside – they never really owned EFA, and in the end their own priorities came to predominate. As has been noted, “The key issue of globalisation is that policy is made by those not accountable to local populations and representing alien interests” (Harvey Goldstein, pers comm). In many countries, issues surrounding the cost of providing schools for the growing numbers of children (as the population continued to grow, so that governments had to run faster simply to stay in the same place) led to the removal of resources from adult literacy and adult education. In any case, there was something of a difference between EFA for children and EFA for adults: all children need schooling provision, but not all adults need basic schooling provision, only those who have never had, or completed, their education. Education for All Children as a government-sponsored programme made sense; but education for all adults as a government-sponsored programme made less sense. In addition, there was the fear of the radicalism of much adult education: in the face of statements such as “adult education in Malaysia continues to reproduce and privilege hierarchical power relations, top-down interactions, and structured monologic discourses”, governments took refuge either in a narrow form of literacy education (“Malaysian literacy education continues to be narrowly utilitarian, grounded in decontextualized, skills-based functional discourses, where the specifics of reading and writing are lost in the rote learning of a body of facts” (Koo, 2004, p. 84)) or in abandoning the adult dimension altogether. Thus, despite the continuing rhetoric about the importance of the education of adults for both instrumental reasons and for reasons of human rights, adult education over the years almost disappeared from EFA. EFAC reigned.
EFAC Becomes SFAC
What is more, in most countries, EFA became synonymous with ‘Schooling for All Children’(SFAC). The schooling model of EFA came to predominate. Access to formal education (especially for girls) was felt to be the key. New schools, new locations, and new types of schools were all tried in various locations. Arguments again centred around both instrumental and human rights issues, especially gender equality. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) revealed this clearly. Where formal schooling could not be provided for all, flexible and non-formal schooling were developed to meet the demands of EFA (Rogers, 2004a). Although sometimes labelled ‘participatory’ (especially the community school movement), in practice the participation of the learners and the local community was restricted to matters of format, timing and location, not to curriculum and length of courses and modes of assessment; these are formal schools ‘writ small’. Many such programmes were on a large scale; despite some resistance to this as ‘second-rate schooling’, some governments saw non-formal primary education (NFPE) as a major contributor to the achievement of their EFA targets. There have, of course, been some attempts to reverse this; arguments that the only way to achieve EFA was to enhance the excellence of the primary schools were heard increasingly vehemently but with relatively little effect (see, for example, Ramachandran, 2003). Expansion of inadequate provision of primary schools, formal and non-formal, was felt to be the answer to EFA. And more recently there has been a move among some international aid agencies (who are the moving spirits behind EFA) to include secondary education in EFA, to talk of universal secondary education (USE) as well as vocational education and training (VET).
SFAC Becomes SFA
So it is not surprising that, in those locations where Education for Adults was taken seriously (and there were some centres for this, where local political issues made this important – countries like the new South Africa and the Philippines), the provision of learning opportunities for adults took the form of Schooling for Adults (SFA). In the Philippines, a national programme of Accreditation and Equivalency was launched, a semi-formal provision with a common and school-related curriculum. In South Africa, a national programme of Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) took shape with a formal equivalent qualifications framework. In Namibia, a new national programme related to school equivalencies is being constructed.
The adoption of national non-formal systems of schooling for adults alongside those of children (Rogers, 2004a) can be related to a number of issues, among them being the fact that few other proven models are available, that it is easier to manage a single national programme with set curricula and teaching and learning materials than a diverse and participatory one, and that many of the learners and teachers in these adult programmes appeared to express a desire for such a schooling approach. But above all there is the unconscious adoption of cultural models of education:
There are a number of reasons why instructional design [of adult basic education] shows evidence of being culturally one-dimensional and exclusionary. These include having an unconscious culturally homogenous approach or wishing to avoid the possible controversy in the contradictory stances. Treating the user as an abstract ‘learner’ with no situated identity can lead to mistaken assumptions. (Reinke and James, 2004, p. 230)
Such national programmes of adult basic education were, however, relatively few – although there were more adult learning programmes related to vocational training. More common were national short-term adult literacy campaigns. Whatever was provided, however, was always done more cheaply than the provision of schools for children – cheaper teachers, cheaper teacher training, cheaper teaching and learning equipment and materials. It is therefore not surprising that the results of such programmes in almost all cases were less than those expected from formal schools for children. The ‘schooling for adults’ model of EFA on the whole failed to attract and keep the adults for whom it was intended and to yield the results that were hoped for.
New Approaches to EFAA
All of this led many governments to reduce progressively their commitment to adult learning. NGOs for a long time kept up their commitment. UNESCO Institute of Education in particular, with its wide-ranging programme of international conferences, workshops, training courses, research projects and publications, as several of the articles in this collection acknowledge, continued to inspire many worldwide to continue to ensure that some strand of adult learning was included in EFA. And the result is that today, there are signs of a growing interest in adult EFA. NGOs and civil society bodies, increasingly looking like new social movements, alliances of organisations and individuals highly committed around a common objective, such as the Global Campaign for Education (Archer, this issue), are once again moving in the direction of EFAA (Education for All for Adults). Some agencies have reasserted their continuing commitment; others like the World Bank are looking again at it. The poverty focus of much current aid has led to a new interest in the relationship between education of adults and livelihoods (DFID, 2002; COL, online; Oxenham, this issue). UNESCO, which has called for a Decade of Literacy, the activities of which cover both children, adolescents and adults, has recently issued a new position paper, taking account of the New Literacy Studies and their insistence on the ‘plurality of literacy’(UNESCO, 2004), and a new literacy programme(Literacy Initiative for the Excluded: LIFE) is being prepared. Some agencies such as the Commonwealth of Learning are exploring new ways (including distance and open learning) of making provision for adults; ICT is being pressed into service (Farrell, 2004; Yates and Bradley, 2000).
In much of this revival, there is a feeling that the earlier programmes, curriculum-led rather than demand-led, built on a primary school model applied to adults, could never meet the very diverse needs of adult learners. As Sabri (this issue) indicates, “the literacy that has been provided [to adults] ... does not work”. A growing interest in adult learning theory is one of the factors that has led to a sense of despondency about the earlier EFAA (Rogers, 1992, 2003a).Some now think that equivalency of qualifications is for many adults largely irrelevant. Experience suggests that few men and women over the age of 30 feel the need to acquire a primary school qualification for any instrumental reasons. It is true that a number of adults (mainly younger adults) have used such a route to progress into some form of formal or non-formal education; on the whole those who have followed this path have followed it more for identity reasons, to remove the stigma of being ‘uneducated’, than for practical use. Thus for some it gives a great boost to their confidence and feeling of self-worth. But for a man or woman, working hard to maintain and enhance their family, to contribute to their community and to attain some self-fulfilment and enjoyment in life, a Grade 5 qualification is on the whole meaningless. So the provision of schooling models is increasingly felt to be inappropriate for most adults. “It is through ‘difference’ from schooling that adult learning programs define their aims and purposes – the distinctive qualities of participants (educators, learners and scholars), their distinguishing pedagogical qualities, and the educational possibilities they claim for students and society” (Shore, 2004, p. 109, my italics).
The failure of the SFA approach to EFAA to achieve the expectations of the providers is thus now sometimes ascribed to the fact that it pays less than adequate attention to the principles of adult learning. As has been said so often, “Adults learn what they want to learn, when they want to learn it, how they want to learn it and for as long as they feel necessary”. Increasing attention is now being paid to adult learning; and the learning that adults do is inspired by their aspirations.
Aspirational Education
And herein lies the key problem to government-sponsored EFAA. Adult aspirations (like identities) are multiple, flexible and constantly changing and growing. We cannot take any aspirations as generic. Not all farmers, fisherfolk and especially not all women have the same aspirations. Not even all of the very poor put ‘getting out of poverty’ at the top of their immediate agendas: some very poor families get even further into poverty in order to fulfil their aspirations for their children (dowry is a prime example of this). And if we are to take seriously the adult learning dictum of ‘start where they are’ rather than trying to motivate them to start where we want them to start, then we need to start with their existing aspirations rather than try to change these aspirations.
And this will lead to the inevitable conclusion that (as DFID has said strongly in its recent position paper on literacy (DFID, 2002)) a one-size-fits-all approach to EFAA can never be effective, for adults will only learn what they wish to learn to fulfil their own aspirations. Any provision of EFAA needs to be highly diverse. Such an approach does not, however, fit the ‘schooling model’ easily, and the implementing agencies (usually Ministries of Education) seem to find managing diversity more difficult than managing a national system of nearly uniform primary schools and adult literacy classes. On top of that, adult aspirations change as the learning programme progresses; a trajectory of often highly individualised aspirations emerges during the adult education provision. So that adult learning approaches suggest that EFAA cannot be met by the ‘single-injection’ model of adult basic education, a once-for-all course. For with adults, goals met successfully inspire new goals. Satisfying the hunger for learning only increases the appetite for further learning. And to meet the changing aspirations of the adult learners calls for a high level of initiative on the part of teachers of adults. Adult education, including EFAA, can never be done on the cheap.
Aspirational adult education thus seems to indicate that the provision of highly diversified, contextualised, participatory forms of EFA would seem to be better suited to adult learners rather than standardised, decontextualised, certificated programmes (Rogers, 2004a). It may be that for adults we do not want ‘education’ but ‘learning’; not national ABET programmes but diversified LOPA (learning opportunities for adults). And some are urging (Mera, this issue) that civil society is better suited to make this provision under the eye of governments rather than governments making the provision themselves, although governments have a role (Ellis, this issue).
Convergence and the New EFAA
This special issue of Convergence forms part of the revival in EFAA which is already under way. The following articles explore both conceptual and practical issues and the reactions of international agencies and donors; and they come from all regions of the world. They take different viewpoints in relation to EFA for adults. But all are united in asserting that all adults have the right to learn what they feel is necessary to their own development and the development of their communities and nations; and that one of the roles of government is to help ensure that such provision is made available and accessible to them. This surely is the goal of EFAA.
The fact that the contributors express divergent views about education for adults is sometimes advanced as a reason why governments and donors have been hesitant about the provision of EFAA (Archer). That there are different views is clear. For example, some of the writers in this issue see adult education as primarily literacy provision, contributing to the MDGs for literacy; others give it a much wider remit. Some concentrate on learning literacy on its own, separating it from other learning aspirations; others see literacy in the context of livelihoods. Some suggest that the lack of literacy is one of the causes of poverty, while others believe that poverty is one of the causes of illiteracy. Some take the view that adult education should be closely related to the national educational system linked to the Ministry of Education, while others suggest that it should be more closely related to development and livelihood enhancement (Oxenham), perhaps with responsibility lying with other government agencies. Thus some go wider than schooling for adults and see ‘education for all’ for adults as learning life skills, not just learning school-related skills. Rosa María Torres suggests that a programme of adult learning rather than adult basic education should be developed, and Kell too suggests that literacy should not be taught on its own but rather in the context of a highly diverse provision. The roles of NGOs and non-formal education in the provision of EFA for adults too is subject to debate, and the case for institutionalising adult education is sometimes made. Two case studies (Hildebrand and Hinzen, and Ellis) suggest that large scale adult literacy programmes can be effective, but others argue that such an approach de-links literacy from development and that a single-injection campaign model (which would seem to exemplify Freire’s ‘banking’ model of education, i.e. ‘learn this now once and for all and apply it in your life from henceforth’) is less effective than a continuing provision of diverse learning opportunities. The outcomes of adult literacy and EFA for adults are also subject to argument, in terms of whether the indicators of ‘success’ should be seen in terms of literacy statistics or in wider socio-economic outcomes. While the relationship between literacy learning and adult education on the one hand and these wider developmental goals on the other hand is also subject to debate, with some seeing direct outcomes such as improved health and the enrolment of children in formal schools flowing from such programmes and others being less certain of the causal nature of the relationship between such improvements and adult literacy/education.
But such divergences cannot be used as an excuse to restrict the provision of education for all those adults for whom EFA forms part of their aspirations. It simply confirms that a ‘one-size-fits-all’ programme can no longer be satisfactory. The new EFAA being argued for in these pages consists of a very diverse provision to meet the wide range of adult life tasks and aspirations. Urban participants differ from rural, older learners from younger; gender, race, language groups, cultural and occupational groupings, and personal identity formation all call for different forms of provision. Some adults will need individualised learning, some will be happier within group learning situations (communities of practice). Drop-in centres and an adult education ‘extension service’(Adineroye and Rogers, forthcoming; Rogers and Uddin, forthcoming), and open and distance learning may form part of the pattern with the new technologies playing a part in some locations (Farrell, 2004; Yates and Bradley,2000). The more or less uniform schooling model appropriate for children as the sole form of provision is not appropriate for adults. Both the ‘educational’ model of EFAA and the ‘developmental’ model of EFAA will need to be pursued side by side (see Rogers, 2004b), so that the diversity of views among those who press for EFAA simply reflects the field which is adult (lifelong) education and is an essential part of the discourse; and the diversity of provision will lead to effective EFAA.
The New EFAA
The gap which the lack of provision for adult learning under EFA has provided could, however, be in itself a good thing. For it has given us the chance to re-think what we mean when we talk of adult education – and thus to revise our policies and practices. When EFA turns its attention to adults, it will be (in the spirit of this age) a new adult education. And it will be characterised by four key features:
1. It will not be schooling for adults. The new EFAA will provide situations where the participant-learners will be treated as adults who are learning according to adult learning principles. Not for these adults sitting silently on the floor and copying letters off the blackboard onto slates without any meaning, but active learning, peer learning, enquiry and critical learning, working in small ‘communities of practice’ (Lave and Wenger, 1991) – in short an adult relationship between teacher/facilitator and participant-learners – ‘learning on equal terms’. The identities that adults create for themselves as student learners need not deny their adulthood (Rogers, 2003b). Some adults will say that they wish to be treated as children, to experience formal schooling, and we need to respect such aspirations (‘start where they are’); but evidence in the field suggests that most of these will after a time start to aspire to respect for their adulthood, to sharing in the learning processes.
2. It will be a diverse provision. No longer will it be confined to the provision of a standardised school-based programme aimed at all adults, curriculum-led. While some provision of school-like contexts may need to be provided to meet the aspirations of those who wish to experience such forms of learning, the new EFAA will be demand-led. It will seek to meet the existing learning needs and the developing aspirations of that diversity which is adults, whatever, whenever and wherever these are.
3. Much of it will be located firmly within a developmental context rather than an ‘educational’ context; as Shirley Walters put it, it “must break out of the education silo” (Lit Afr, 2000, p. 13). And the development will be the freedom that Amartya Sen (1999) talks about rather than a discipline into good behaviour.
4. It will be quality learning. It cannot be provided on the cheap. It needs to be taken as seriously as agricultural extension and health extension, and proper resources must be devoted to it. It needs to be regarded as an ongoing programme, not a single injection shot that will cure ills.
And, as Menaka Roy shows (this issue), this agenda needs to be considered on a holistic basis: one cannot adopt part of it and expect success. The whole of the implications of the provision of learning for adults need to be taken into account when planning the new EFAA.
It may be that the linking of adult learning with EFA has been detrimental to adult learners, for it has reinforced the schooling model of adult learning. So, while we urge EFA to take seriously the claims of adults to educational provision, we do not mean providing the same education as children receive. We mean a new education, breaking free of the schooling model, freeing the participants to learn what they want when they want, where they want and for as long as they want – real participatory learning, as is their human right.
Alan Rogers is a freelance consultant trainer and convener of Uppingham Seminars in Development. An adult educator with a long and wide experience of working in many countries, especially in south Asia, his key concerns are with adult learning, training of trainers, and adult literacy in the contexts of development. Among his key publications are Teaching Adults (Open University Press, 1986–2003, three editions and several translations), Adults Learning for Development (Cassell, 1992), What is the Difference? A New Critique of Adult Learning and Teaching (NIACE, 2003), and most recently Non-formal Education: Flexible Schooling or Participatory Education? (Hong Kong University and Kluwer, 2004). He has been co-ordinating an international research project into urban literacies, and a collection of papers from this project will be published shortly under the title Urban Literacy: Communication, Learning and Identity in Development Contexts (UNESCO Institute of Education). He can be reached at alan.rogers@uea.ac.uk
Note
1. We wish to make it abundantly clear that, in pressing the case in this issue that EFA must include a major programme of learning for adults, we do not intend in any way to detract from the claims of early child development to a share of the space that is EFA. Indeed, the two often go together, for early child development includes educational provision for the early child’s parent(s).
References
Aderinoye, R. and Rogers, A. forthcoming. ‘Urban literacies: The intervention of the literacy shop approach in Bodija Market, Ibadan, Nigeria’. In A. Rogers (ed.) Urban Literacy: Communication, Learning and Identity in Development Contexts. Hamburg: UNESCO Institute of Education.
COL: Commonwealth of Learning, online at: http://www.col.org/literacyandlivelihoods
DFID 2002. Improving Livelihoods for the Poor: The Role of Literacy, Background Briefing. London: DFID.
Farrell, G. M. (ed.) 2004. ICT and Literacy: Who Benefits? Experience from Zambia and India. Vancouver: Commonwealth of Learning.
GMR 2002. Education for All: Is The World on Track? Global Monitoring Report, Paris: UNESCO.
Koo, Y. L. 2004. ‘Multicultural meaning makers: Malaysian ways with words and the world’. In P. Kell, S. Shore and M. Singh, Adult Education @ 21st Century, pp. 71–88, New York: Peter Lang.
Lave, J. and Wenger, E. 1991. Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lit Afr 2000. ‘Literacy in Africa’. Paper prepared by Shirley Walters for meeting of Ministers of Education. Paris: UNESCO.
Ramachandran, V. 2003. Getting Children Back into School: Case Studies in Primary Education. New Delhi: Sage.
Reinke, L. and James, P. 2004. ‘Learning reflexively: Technological mediation and indigenous cultures’. In P. Kell, S. Shore and M. Singh, Adult Education @21st Century, pp. 221–36. New York: Peter Lang.
Rogers, A. 1992. Adults Learning for Development. London: Cassell.
Rogers, A. 2003a. What is the Difference? A New Critique of Adult Learning and Teaching. Leicester: NIACE.
Rogers, A. 2003b. Teaching Adults(3rd edn). Buckingham: Open UniversityPress.
Rogers, A. 2004a. Non-formal Education: Flexible Schooling or Participatory Education? Hong Kong: CERC, University of Hong Kong, and Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Rogers, A. 2004b. ‘Foreword: The World of Adult Literacy Today’. In G. M. Farrell (ed.) ICT and Literacy: Who Benefits? Experience from Zambia and India, pp. ix–xvii. Vancouver: Commonwealth of Learning.
Rogers, A. and Uddin, M. A. forthcoming. ‘Adults learning literacy: Adult learning theory and the provision of literacy classes in the context of developing societies’. In B. V. Street (ed.) Literacy Across Educational Contexts. Philadelphia: Caslon; see also paper by Rogers, A. and Uddin, M. A., online at: http://www.col.org/literacyandlivelihoods
Sen, A. 1999. Development as Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shore, S. 2004. ‘Reflexive theory building “after” colonialism: Challenges for adult education’. In P. Kell, S. Shore and M. Singh, Adult Education @ 21st Century, pp. 107–20. New York: Peter Lang.
UNESCO 2004. The Plurality of Literacy and Its Implications for Policies and Programmes. Paris: UNESCO Education Sector, Position Paper.
Yates, C. and Bradley, J. (eds) 2000. Basic Education at a Distance. London: RoutledgeFalmer and Vancouver: Commonwealth of Learning.
