Overview of learning programmes for
literacy and more general life/vocational
skills for women
Paper produced for UNESCO EFA Monitoring Report Team
By Dr. Anna Robinson-Pant
Centre for Applied Research in Education
School of Education and Professional Development
University of East Anglia
Norwich NR4 7TJ
May 2003
CONTENTS
1. Introduction
2. A Review of Achievements in Literacy Rates
3. What factors influence women’s low achievement in basic education in
many parts of the developing world?
3.i. Conflicting viewpoints: why literacy and what kind of literacy?
3.ii. Literacy teaching approaches and class organisation
3.iii. Language issues
3.iv. Literacy as a lower status education
3.v. Different women: different needs
3.vi. Summary
4. Addressing the constraints: innovative approaches to literacy
programming
5. Broadening the educational approach: skills development programmes
for women
5.i. Vocational training and education: a gender perspective
5.ii. What kind of skills training works for women?
6. Analysing the linkages between women’s literacy and skills training
programmes
7. References
1
Overview of learning programmes for literacy and more general life/vocational
skills for women
1. Introduction
The majority of people in the world today who cannot read and write are women.
Though the gender gap will have narrowed considerably by the year 2015, more than
half the female population in several of the poorest countries will still be illiterate1.
Women in these areas of the world are also concentrated in the poorest paid, most
vulnerable areas of work, usually in the informal sector. They often lack the
opportunity to develop new skills to improve their standard of living, through
vocational training programmes or basic education. This paper aims to provide a
review of achievements towards reducing gender inequality in women’s access to
literacy and other kinds of education, including vocational skills training. Analysing
the constraints and presenting examples from various regions of programmes which
have succeeded in meeting women’s learning needs, the paper will then look at how
the interconnections between literacy and vocational skills programmes could be
strengthened in order to provide a more holistic approach to women’s education.
2. A Review of Achievements in Literacy Rates
The gap between adult2 women’s and men’s literacy rates worldwide is gradually
narrowing (11.1% in 2000) but is still projected to reduce only to 8.1% by the year
2015. The picture on youth literacy3 is however more optimistic due to increasing
access to schooling, with a projected 4.2% gap in literacy rates by 2015 (92.5% male,
88.3% female). Looking at the regional disparities, the highest gap is likely to be in
South and West Asia (18.2% difference between male and female adult literacy rates
in 2015, and female literacy at only 56.3%4) and the Arab states and North Africa
(17.2% gender gap), with sub-Saharan Africa making slightly more progress with an
11.5% gender gap. Central Asia (0%), Latin America and the Caribbean (0.7%) and
North America/ Western Europe (0.2%) are likely to be the only regions where gender
equality in terms of adult literacy rates is achieved by the year 2015. Interestingly, in
Latin America and the Caribbean, there were more literate women than men in the 1524 year age range in the figures collected for the year 2000 (gender gap of –0.6%),
reflecting the high participation of girls in school education.
Within the regions discussed above, there are however great differences in the gender
gap between the countries included in the aggregate rates: for example, within North
Africa and the Arab states, Qatar (-5.7% by 2015) and United Arab Emirates (-7.7%)
show a very favourable picture for women, as compared with Iraq (30.6% gap, only
29.1% female literacy rate) and Yemen (30% gap). Given similar religious and
cultural values of these four countries, it would seem to be the contrasting economic
I have used the term ‘illiterate’ in this paper, though the traditional division between illiterate and
literate people is now much disputed, due to the influence of the New Literacy Studies (see Street,
1993). Besides the continued problem of finding a uniform measure of literacy - currently being
tackled through UIS’s LAMP (Literacy Assessment and Monitoring Programme) - the concept of
multi-literacies implies that everyone is continually learning new literacy practices in differing contexts
(e.g. becoming literate in ICT).
2
Age group 15 years and over
3
Age group 15 to 24 years only
4
All figures quoted in this section are for the 2015 projection (from UIS estimates).
1
2
conditions and political stability that have influenced the access of women to
education in Qatar and UAE, as well as demographic factors (large numbers of
illiterate men from poorer areas of the world, who migrate to Qatar in search of
work). As Maamouri (1999) pointed out in relation to the Arab region, breaking down
illiteracy rates further into age-specific rates reveals that the highest proportion of
illiterate women in this region are in the over-fifty age bracket – suggesting even
higher numbers of young women are literate. Similar disparities between countries
can be found in the Central and Eastern Europe region: Turkey (10.5% gap) and
Albania (8.4% gap) stand out as unlikely to have attained gender equality in adult
literacy rates by the year 2015, in contrast to all the other countries in this region.
Within sub-Saharan Africa, it is also evident that there are great variations – from the
lowest female literacy rates worldwide (Niger, 16.2%, Mali, 27.4%) to several
countries with over 90% female literacy rates (Botswana, Congo, Lesotho,
Zimbabwe), and Namibia where more women than men will be literate in 2015
(91.5% female, 89.9% male).
It is striking that in at least twelve countries (of those who have currently provided
statistics to UIS), more than half of the female adult population will still be illiterate
by the year 2015: Iraq (29.1%), Mauritania (39.2%), Bangladesh (38.2%), Nepal
(42.1%), Pakistan (41.6%), Benin (38.3%), Burkina Faso (28.3%), The Gambia
(47.8%), Guinea-Bissau (45.8%), Mali (27.4%), Niger (16.2%), Senegal (43.3%).
This paper aims to analyse some of the reasons for the persistently high female
illiteracy rates and gender gap in literacy in many parts of the world, as well as
providing examples of successful literacy interventions for women.
3. What factors influence women’s low achievement in basic education in many
parts of the developing world?
The low figures for women’s literacy in countries as geographically and culturally
diverse as India, Liberia and Lao indicate, above all, these women’s limited access to
schooling in the past decades. The factors influencing girls’ access and retention in
formal schooling will not be dealt with in this paper, but are an integral part of the
picture on the gender gap in adult literacy rates5. Although adult literacy programmes
have been implemented in most countries of the developing world, they have often
been characterised by high drop-out rates, low attainment and retention of literacy
skills (Abadzi, 1994), particularly when targeting women specifically. Most literacy
programmes also fail to reach the poorest groups: “it is evident that those women who
have been excluded from primary schooling, due to economic and social factors, are
largely excluded from literacy classes for the same reasons” (DfID, 2002: 6). The
organisational structures and teaching methodologies of literacy programmes vary
enormously, from small scale projects around “empowerment” to the more common
“campaign approach”, aiming to make as many women as possible literate within as
short a time as possible. In this section, I will analyse the factors influencing the
participation of adult women in literacy education, within a range of differing
educational approaches and forms of organisation.
5
As Bown (1990) pointed out, one of the difficulties in analysing female literacy rates is that they are
both a measure of girls’ participation in schooling as well as adults’ participation in basic education
programmes. The separate youth literacy rates do however help to distinguish between progress in
formal education and in adult literacy in certain contexts.
3
3.i. Conflicting viewpoints: why women’s literacy and what kind of literacy?
In the 1980s and early ‘90s, several key studies evaluated the “barriers” facing women
who wanted to participate in literacy programmes. Similar to the factors influencing
girls’ attendance at school, the obstacles identified included women’s lack of time and
heavy domestic workload, distance to classes, male teachers, opposition from other
family members (particularly husbands) and poor linkages with other development
inputs, such as income generating programmes (Ballara 1991, Lind 1989 and 1990,
Bown 1990). Over the past decade, a broader understanding of what ‘literacy’ means
to individual women in differing social, political and cultural contexts (see last year’s
EFA Global Monitoring Report, p 60, Box 2.9) has led to a realisation that terms such
as “barriers” and “motivation” can conceal a deeper analysis of why women drop out
from programmes.
In particular, detailed ethnographic research into how women use (or want to use)
literacy skills in their everyday lives has often revealed a gulf between policy makers’
objectives for promoting literacy classes, the kind of curriculum provided and
women’s reasons for enrolling on a programme. For example, in a district in Ghana,
many women joined the Functional Literacy Programme in order to improve their
religious reading skills (and gain higher social status), but the programme was
intended to link literacy to functional income generating skills, such as snail rearing
(Yates, 1994). Such research findings have led to an increasing recognition that being
“literate” has differing meanings according to cultural context and within existing
gender relations. In particular, illiteracy does not necessarily carry the stigma
associated in many developed countries: Kell’s (1996) research in South Africa
revealed how older women maintained positions of authority and were respected for
their knowledge within their communities, without learning literacy. By contrast,
Rockhill found in Los Angeles Hispanic communities, that men felt threatened by
their wives learning to read and write, as they could no longer see them as “illiterate
whores” to be dominated in the home (Rockhill, 1994: 245). Understanding around
what being literate or illiterate means to women and men in specific cultural contexts
is thus a crucial first step when setting up literacy programmes aiming to empower
women.
Many development programmes have used women’s literacy classes as an ‘entry
point’ to other interventions, such as family planning, savings and credit groups or
maternal/child health programmes. Empirical research evidence, demonstrating a link
between women’s literacy rates and health improvement (notably child mortality
rates, Caldwell, 1993 or fertility rates, LeVine et al, 1991, 1999, Cochrane, 1979) has
lent weight to the idea that literacy can enable women to be more efficient in their
roles within the family. Burchfield’s study in Nepal (2002a), for example, concluded
that women’s literacy programmes had a positive impact on indicators including
children’s education, family and reproductive health, and participation in incomeearning activities. The policy objective for promoting women’s literacy influences
both the kind of literacy curriculum provided and sometimes the reasons why women
attend such classes. In many NGO programmes in Nepal, obtaining a loan or access to
skills training courses can be dependent on attendance at a literacy course for six
months beforehand (Robinson-Pant, 2001). In such circumstances, women may
4
(understandably) not be motivated to learn to read and write for any particular
purpose, other than to gain access to other development inputs6.
These strong instrumental policy objectives for promoting women’s literacy have also
led to a majority of literacy programmes being based around women’s reproductive
role in the home. The popular “family literacy” approaches in both developed and
developing country contexts, for example, often introduce new literacy practices (such
as “baby record books”) that will support women as mothers (Manandhar and Leslie,
1994 describe such a family literacy programme run by Save the Children USA in
Nepal). Many literacy class textbooks are more didactic in their approach – aiming to
instruct women on better health and hygiene practices through stories with a message.
Based on the assumption that women can learn new ideas more effectively once they
can access printed material, such primers often equate illiteracy with ignorance.
Dighe’s (1995) survey of women’s literacy primers in India revealed that they
presented a stereotypical image of the illiterate woman who was unable to adopt
hygienic practices in her home until she became literate.
This conflict between the policy objectives for promoting women’s literacy and the
viewpoints of women participants themselves lies behind the drop-out figures for
many literacy classes. Women may enrol in a literacy class with a particular task in
mind – perhaps keeping the accounts in a small tea shop, learning to read a religious
text or wanting to write a letter to a friend. Women who discover that the course is
based entirely around a different kind of literacy – such as information on nutrition or
family planning messages – may drop out if the teacher is not flexible enough to meet
their needs. The genre of the textbook (around health and nutrition messages) often
means that they cannot apply the kind of literacy learnt in the classroom to their
everyday lives. Women may also object to the underlying message of the programme
– that illiterate women are less knowledgeable than literate women, and that they need
to gain literacy skills in order to learn about improved health practices or to access
other development inputs.
Though the ‘functional’ approach to women’s literacy7 has dominated in many
countries, and led to a focus on women’s reproductive role, increasingly planners are
recognising that adult women’s education needs to be promoted as a human right8.
The ‘rights’ approach can enable planners to respond to women’s own reasons for
wanting to learn literacy – whether to read about their legal rights (see Box A) or to
write about their lives (see the Learner Generated Materials approach, Box B). This
also implies that curriculum planning should be more participatory, taking account of
where women are now – not just in terms of the visible barriers, such as timing or
location - but relating programmes to their everyday literacy practices. Finding out
why women want to learn literacy or how it could be useful in their lives is not easy.
All too often, literacy facilitators have tried to educate women as to why they want to
Findings from a district in Kenya in Oxenham’s (2002: 31) study are reported to have revealed that
literacy centres with an income generating component had 80% attendance rates, as compared to 20%
in those without. Mwangi (2002: 78) notes in this context that “incorporating livelihoods projects into
literacy classes acts as a pull factor for a large section of the low income population”.
7
Defined by UNESCO in the 1960s as “the process and content of learning to read and write to the
preparation for work and vocational training, as well as a means of increasing the productivity of the
individual” (Verhoeven, 1994: 6).
8
See EFA Global Monitoring Report, 2002, p 14
6
5
read and write – to the extent, that when asked about their reasons, even women in
remote mountain villages without transport may reply that they want to learn to read
bus numbers! The most innovative literacy programmes have recognised the need for
preliminary research into women’s existing literacy practices, rather than assuming
that efforts need to be directed towards creating a “literate environment” (as many
projects previously did: see Rogers et al, 1999). The Women’s Empowerment for
Poverty Alleviation (WEPA) Programme in Pakistan, for example, discovered that
40% of rural women knew the Koran by rote, so developed literacy materials in Urdu
to build on and support their Arabic reading practices (Rahman, 2000).
Box A: Legal literacy in India
Believing that literacy alone is not sufficient to empower women, MARG (Multiple
Action Research Group) started a project to educate women about their legal rights.
The Delhi-based NGO developed a series of manuals on 23 laws which affected
women’s lives, using colour coded covers to identify the subject matter: for example,
red was around marriage laws, blue about citizens’ rights versus the police. MARG
ran three day legal literacy workshops, acting as a resource to other community
organisations (some implementing non-formal education programmes). Both literate
and non-literate women attended these workshops and through role play, video and
‘reading’ the simple, clearly illustrated manuals (non-literate women drew on visual
literacy to do this), began to gain more awareness of their rights. For some older
women, the experience of using the manuals as tools in the workshop inspired them to
begin to attend literacy classes to learn to read more. The manuals provided support in
the long term for women to take legal and social action: women labourers in Bihar
learned about the Equal Renumeration Act, then refused to work in the fields until
they were paid equal wages – showing their employers the relevant sections in their
manual as evidence. In another case, community members stopped a fourteen year old
girl from being forcibly married, after reading about the Child Marriage Restraint Act.
Source: Nivedita Monga, 2000
3. ii. Literacy teaching approaches and class organisation
Teaching methods in many women’s literacy classes are often influenced by practices
in local schools, even when the implementing agencies have intended to introduce a
more participatory or Freirean approach around consciousness-raising. Classes may
be held in the evening in school premises and be taught by school teachers in their
spare time. Although many women who attend literacy classes have never attended
school or perhaps dropped out after a year or so when they were children, they often
expect to be taught in the same way as children – chanting the alphabet and not
questioning the teacher’s authority. This lack of recognition of any difference between
teaching children or adults can mean that both teachers and women participants
become demotivated, as literacy becomes viewed as an academic classroomorientated exercise.
Women often face similar constraints to girls in schools – with the ‘hidden’
curriculum (such as male teachers and male bias in the textbook) reinforcing the idea
that they are in a subordinate position. Even within primers designed for women’s
6
literacy programmes, women characters can be nameless (or referred to as “Ram’s
wife”) or are seen only in the background of illustrations (perhaps cleaning up while
the male characters discuss development issues). Several innovative approaches have
however moved away from relying on mass-produced textbooks. Within the
REFLECT circles, groups of women are encouraged to critically discuss their own
issues and problems through PRA visual diagramming – in contrast to textbooks
where even more ‘feminist’ messages are “presented as an imposed conclusion”
(Cottingham et al,1998: 32).
Like school education, literacy is seen primarily as a group activity, which has the
benefits of drawing women together and increasing their confidence through the
institution of the literacy class. As Stromquist’s research with the MOVA programme
in Brazil found, women’s literacy classes also provide an important social space as
“informal social clubs” for poor women (1997: 94). However, many women face
considerable difficulty in having to learn literacy together at the same place, at the
same time and often at the same pace. Though many NGOs regard literacy classes as
an effective way of forming and developing a group of women who can then act as a
savings and credit group, there is also increasing recognition that some women may
prefer to study alone or in less formalised groups. The ‘each one teach one’ approach
has been successful in reaching women who would not otherwise be able to go to
classes on a regular basis, with young students and children teaching their neighbours
individually. Innovative approaches have also centred around self-learning methods –
for example, United Mission to Nepal developed laminated posters which women
could put up in their kitchens to study from as they cooked and very small cards
which they could carry inside their saris to the fields.
Box B: Camps, centres or classes: which work best for women?
Many literacy providers have found that running classes in the evening or in
participants’ homes is not sufficient to overcome the specific constraints that women
face in terms of their domestic workload or limited mobility. Residential camps or
workshops have proved an alternative strategy to enable women to learn literacy more
intensively, away from the pressures of home life. The Mahila Samakhya Banda
programme in India organised literacy learning around three ten day residential camps
spread over three months. The camps provided a supportive non-threatening
atmosphere to help build up the women’s confidence as learners. Self-learning is also
an important element of the approach, as women have to study independently once
they return home.
Save the Children US have also run residential writing workshops to develop the
Learner Generated Materials approach - where newly literate women can work
together on collaborative or individual writing about their experiences. The intensive
period of study allows women to draft and finalise their articles, which can then be
published as reading materials for other adult literacy participants.
ActionAid’s REFLECT approach promotes a model of literacy circles, which are less
formalised centres for literacy activities than a conventional classroom – without a
primer or a particular literacy level that should be reached, and drawing on visual
representations of people’s realities created through PRA (Participatory Rural
Appraisal) methods. Women participants in Malealea, Lesotho, commented how
“space within the [REFLECT] circle was different from the space at home” (Attwood
7
et al, forthcoming) in that they were able to challenge “traditional gender contracts”,
even within mixed circles. In Andhra Pradesh, Yakshi (an NGO using the REFLECT
approach with adhivasi communities) transformed a traditionally male social
institution, the ‘gotti’, by enabling women to learn literacy and vocational skills
within this structure. Through using PRA to pool their indigenous knowledge around
animal medicine, they were able to develop their literacy skills and train animal health
workers to revive local healing practices.
Sources: Ramachandran, V., 1998; Mahila Samakhya and Nirantar, 1996;
Madhusudhan, N., 2002, Cottingham, S. et al, 1998; Save the Children US, 1998;
Attwood, Castle and Smythe, forthcoming.
3.iii. Language issues
A major constraint facing many women who enrol for literacy classes is around
language – they may not understand the language (or the register) in which literacy
skills are being taught. Though many policy makers have stated strongly that women
should learn to read and write in their mother tongue (see Lauglo, 2001), this may not
be straightforward if there are no published materials in that language, or if facilitators
have a different mother tongue or have only learned to read in the national language.
Several approaches to teaching literacy can help to fill this gap: the Learner Generated
Materials approach enables women to come together as a group for a writing
workshop to produce materials that can be published for other literacy learners in their
own language (see Box B). Similarly, within the Language Experience Approach,
women are encouraged to tell their own stories with the facilitator acting as scribe –
these texts then become the basis for their literacy learning (see Mace, 2002, for a
detailed account of women using this approach in the UK). In Sierra Leone, the
People’s Educational Association began by drawing on “oral literature”, collecting
traditional stories, songs, riddles and proverbs from thirteen different ethnic groups,
and publishing these in several of their languages (Hinzen, 1987:147). REFLECT has
also enabled women to write in their own language (sometimes developing a script
too, if one does not exist, Archer & Cottingham, 1996) through visual diagramming
and mapping based on PRA.
The choice of language medium is often seen only as an educational issue around
which language would be most easily understood by participants. However, language
policy also needs to be considered within the context of gender relations. Women may
decide to enrol at a literacy class in the hope of gaining access to what they perceive
as a language of power, whether that is the national language or English. Within many
communities, there is a gendered division of languages, which literacy planners need
to respond to. Since men generally have more mobility than women, they may have
had the opportunity to learn other languages informally through interaction in banks,
shops or offices, as well as through attending school. When a women’s literacy
programme is implemented in the vernacular, this could be seen as reinforcing
women’s subordinate position, rather than challenging the idea that women cannot
learn English or languages of power [see Box C]. In many contexts, language choice
may also be related to functional aspects – such as which language women need to
read and write in their everyday lives. If there are few materials in their mother
8
tongue, they may need to learn a different language to understand noticeboards,
newspapers and fill in official forms.
The question of how language choice in the classroom is related to language policy
and language use outside the classroom is rarely addressed in women’s literacy
programmes. The most successful programmes have taken a more flexible approach
to language policy – assuming that a mixture of languages may be used within the
classroom, rather than a “one language” policy approach. If literacy skills are being
introduced in a second language rather than the mother tongue, facilitators may
encourage women to discuss issues in their own language, but perhaps read about
these issues from a text in their second language. In classes where facilitators have not
responded to women’s need to understand a second language – perhaps insisting only
the use of one language and discouraging code-switching – women are likely to drop
out of the course. A similar situation may arise if women’s desire to learn a language
of power is not recognised, through using mother tongue literacy as a bridge to a
second language. Language policy is often developed in a top-down manner (like the
choice of literacy curriculum). The experiences of Mahila Samakhya in India9 suggest
the importance of incorporating the learners’ views about languages and their relative
values in their own communities: “while Bundle was the language the women were
most familiar with.. they simultaneously felt that it was “dehalti” and “Laath maar
bhasha” (rustic and inferior), a poor alternative to Hindi” (Mahila Samakhya, 1996:
43). The Muthande Literacy Programme in South Africa made the decision to teach
dual language literacy, recognising that the older women participants wanted, for
example, to write letters in Zulu but needed to address the envelope in English
(Millican, forthcoming).
Box C: Who chooses which language? EHDAG’s approach to literacy and
language policy in Nepal
In the 1980s, a small group of literacy activists began teaching literacy to women
working in carpet factories just outside Kathmandu. They assumed that the women
would want to learn to read and write in their mother tongue, Newari, and began to
develop special reading materials as all published adult literacy primers were in the
official state language, Nepali. To their surprise, the women wanted to learn to read,
write and speak Nepali, like their husbands and brothers who had been to school. Now
EHDAG (Environment, Health and Development Advisory Group), the local NGO
running the programme, has responded to the young women’s desire to learn English
literacy too. Although they do not need to read or write English in the carpet factory
or their everyday life, they explained that they wanted to feel ‘educated’ like their
brothers who attend private English medium schools. Sarita, a young woman who
attended literacy classes in the ‘80s, was trained ‘on the job’ through acting as a class
assistant, and is now a paid literacy facilitator. Though she has never learnt English
formally, she teaches her class the English alphabet and numbers phonetically through
a mixture of Nepali and Newari. EHDAG supports the idea of using several different
languages in the classroom – the women discuss health issues in their mother tongue
but read materials from the Government health department in Nepali.
Source: Robinson-Pant, 2001
9
See case study in EFA Global Monitoring Report, 2002, p.58.
9
3.iv. Literacy as a lower status education
Within national government’s educational budgets, adult literacy has generally been
given low priority, running on a fraction of the costs of formal education10. Within
NGO programmes too, facilitators are given little support or renumeration – the
assumption being that they will work on a semi-voluntary basis11. Given the antisocial hours that facilitators are expected to work (in many cases, two hours a night
for six days a week), it is not surprising that many women’s literacy programmes
suffer from irregular attendance by facilitators as well as participants. In some
countries, facilitators have however been encouraged to take on several classes at
once, so that they can earn a reasonable amount (for example, the Unisa ABET
programme in South Africa, ActionAid in Malawi). As Lauglo notes (2001: 36),
without the “high pressure political mobilisation” which characterised many of the
early literacy campaigns (for example in Cuba), programmes which rely on volunteers
as teachers can face difficulties around ensuring sustainable and quality education.
Many literacy programmes also lack the resources for basic equipment, such as
lanterns and oil, seating or teaching materials. When classes are run in the open air, a
participant’s or facilitator’s house, or an empty school classroom, it is also difficult to
create a positive learning environment without frequent interruptions from animals,
neighbours or children.
A majority of agencies have tried to employ female rather than male facilitators,
believing that this encourages higher attendance by women and be more culturally
acceptable12. However, in the areas where literacy programmes are needed most, it is
particularly difficult to find women who are educated sufficiently to be able to run a
class. This may mean recruiting young school girls to teach literacy to older women.
Though these young facilitators may have the necessary literacy skills, they often face
difficulties with classroom management, especially when trying to initiate discussion
about family planning or nutrition with women who have far more life experience
than themselves. Many young female facilitators resort to teaching literacy as a
mechanical exercise in decoding letters, to avoid having to address the issue of how to
interact with women who are their elders.
The fact that literacy programmes are increasingly seen as a woman’s domain – and
that the job of facilitator is often regarded as semi-voluntary and part-time work for
women (as compared to higher status school teaching) - has contributed to the belief
in some communities that adult literacy is a lower status form of education and
employment for women. Many programmes are run on a campaign basis – meaning
that they move to a new area after running for a certain period to ensure women have
basic literacy skills (around six to nine months). Since female facilitators usually lack
Oxenham (2001: 17) estimated that the annual unit cost of a basic adult education programme “could
range from an exceptional high of being as expensive as a country’s primary school unit cost to a low
of about one eighth” (e.g. in Indonesia, the unit cost of a primary pupil was $92, as compared to $12
for an adult learner).
11
See for example, Carr Hill et al’s (2001) evaluation of adult literacy programmes in Uganda, where
the Functional Adult Literacy programme co-ordinators were “pure volunteers” whereas REFLECT
and other NGO facilitators received a small allowance.
12
An evaluation of literacy programmes in Bolivia found that “women who were taught by female
facilitators scored … higher on the social and economic index than women who were taught by male
facilitators” (Burchfield, 2002b: 113).
10
10
mobility and teach only in their immediate area, they are unlikely to be able to teach
for many cycles, and lack a career structure as facilitators. Once they have gained
experience and teaching skills, the programme is likely to move into a different
geographical area and they may then be unemployed.
Several NGO programmes have attempted to raise the status of literacy education
through improving training and support facilities for facilitators (as in REFLECT
programmes which enabled facilitators to meet regularly to exchange ideas and
receive follow-up training). Such approaches obviously raise the costs of running
literacy programmes, and are rarely implemented on larger scale government
programmes (Lauglo, 2001). The Unisa ABET (Adult Basic Education and Training)
graduate educator network in South Africa (funded by DfID) however has succeeded
in recruiting and providing at least a year’s training to over 3000 ‘volunteer
educators’, many of whom were unemployed women (McKay, 2002).
Literacy programmes have been compared negatively with school education, partly
because participants feel that they lead nowhere. Though many programmes are
linked to income generating components or health training, young participants in
particular are aware that at the end of the literacy course, they do not have any
formally recognised qualification. The lack of certification has been addressed by
some implementing agencies, particularly within nonformal programmes for out-ofschool girls, where attempts have been made to establish the grade at which girls
would be entitled to join primary school (once graduated from the literacy course)13.
In many adult women’s literacy programmes, a certificate is provided at the end of the
course if the participant passes the final test – however as many women comment,
“the certificate is only any good for yourself. The school certificate is good for getting
a job” (pers. comment from participant in Lalitpur, Nepal). In contexts where adult
education courses have been formalised in order that recognised certificates that carry
wider currency can be obtained (an example being ABET in South Africa, see
Prinsloo, 1999), women learners may be discouraged from attending – by formal and
less flexible learning approaches which become more male-dominated. In Indonesia,
Oxenham (2003) reports that very few learners appear to have taken advantage of
accreditation schemes for equivalence with certificates of primary and secondary
education, which might have enabled them to gain access to salaried employment.
3.v. Different women: different needs
Decisions around language, literacy curriculum, forms of organisation and class
structure need to take into account women’s differing needs and constraints. Women
enrolling in a literacy class may differ widely in their life experiences, familiarity with
different languages, domestic workloads, status and roles in the household, and the
ways in which they use or want to use literacy in their everyday lives. Planners have
often not taken these differences into account, resulting in some women feeling
marginalised within the programme, finding the curriculum irrelevant or not being
able to attend because classes were held at times when they were needed at home.
Younger unmarried women may face less difficulty in being released from domestic
duties than a young daughter-in-law who may face opposition from in-laws and her
13
Comings et al (1997) found that a graduate of a nine month adult education programme could attain
literacy skills similar to a fifth grade primary school student.
11
husband. Married women may need to bring young children to the class if they cannot
persuade relatives to look after them (suggesting a need for crèches which has been
met in some programmes). Younger participants may want a more “school like” class
structure in order to feel they are receiving a similar education to their brothers or
husbands – and perhaps to study English. Older women by contrast may be more
interested in simply learning to write their names and would feel embarrassed trying
to speak in a different language from their mother tongue. There may also be a large
proportion of participants who have already attended school or literacy programmes
in the past14.
If these factors are not taken into account by literacy planners and facilitators, it is
likely that the group of women who feel that their specific needs are not being taken
into account will drop out – often giving the reason that they are too busy or too old,
rather than that the course seemed inappropriate. Although a skilled facilitator could
respond to women’s diverse needs according to age or ethnicity, it is unlikely that a
young part-time literacy teacher would be able to teach groups at such different levels
and from such contrasting backgrounds. Carr-Hill’s evaluation study in Uganda found
that many participants therefore felt that “a class worked best when the group was
homogeneous” (p 29). However decisions around practical constraints such as timing
and location are frequently taken in discussion with the group as a whole: participants
may have a say in the logistics, but rarely in the content, teaching-learning materials
or length of the course. Successful literacy programmes have often tried to target a
specific group of women with similar needs – for example, Amari Mandali, an NGO
project in Gujarat worked with young girls in a carpet weaving factory to introduce
literacy related to their jobs. There is increasing recognition too of the need to develop
literacy programmes specifically for groups of women from indigenous groups –
which can act as a catalyst for change around important issues in their lives, such as
land rights. Programmes like Yakshi (see Box B) not only address gender inequalities
through literacy intervention, but recognise that adhivasi (tribal) women may have
differing perspectives and needs from other groups of women in Andhra Pradesh.
3.vi. Summary
It can be seen that the factors affecting women’s low participation relate to the topdown, ‘one size fits all’ planning approach adopted within many large scale literacy
programmes. The economic rationale for promoting women’s literacy (to improve
their efficiency within their reproductive and productive roles) has in the past
dominated over the “rights” objective, influencing the kind of curricula offered and
rarely responding to women’s own reasons for attending classes. Whereas many
programmes focus on providing information to support women’s reproductive role
(particularly nutrition, hygiene and child care), participants have wanted to learn
about their legal rights or literacy skills related to their everyday lives. Drop-out has
also been affected by planners’ limited perspectives on language policy – for
example, promoting only mother tongue literacy teaching for women – and a view
that all women face similar practical and educational constraints to participating in
courses, regardless of age, ethnic background or occupation. Like girls enrolling in
schools, adult women can be discouraged by the ‘hidden currriculum’ (male bias in
Carr Hill’s evaluation in Uganda found that 73% of REFLECT participants had attended primary
school before joining the adult literacy programme.
14
12
textbooks, male teachers), as well as practical obstacles such as inappropriate timing,
location and their domestic responsibilities. Above all, women’s literacy programmes
have been affected by under-resourcing as compared to the formal sector, often
relying on poorly trained volunteer staff, and reinforcing women’s second class status
within educational and work contexts.
4. Addressing the constraints: innovative approaches to literacy programming
The literacy programmes described in boxes above share in common a different
starting point from traditional women’s literacy programmes. Rather than assuming
that illiteracy is a stigma for women in such communities, planners have begun from
an exploration of the roles that women currently play, including how they use or draw
on other forms of support for literacy in their everyday lives. Adopting a more
participatory approach to curriculum planning, programmes have tried to introduce
literacy skills relevant to women’s lives. Instead of using literacy programmes to
introduce messages about how women could improve their lives, planners can aim to
respond to women’s own reasons for coming to a class – perhaps to read religious
books or film posters. Examples such as the legal literacy programme in India suggest
a move away from the idea that literacy is equated only with economic advancement –
as this example illustrates, many women welcome the opportunity to read about their
legal rights and begin to challenge their existing position. The term ‘empowerment’
has been used uncritically in the context of women’s literacy, but more innovative
programmes have begun from the starting point of exploring what ‘empowerment’
means to a particular group of women.
Within functional approaches to literacy, there is now increasing recognition that
women often have the awareness that it is better to have smaller families, for instance,
but lack access to appropriate health facilities or do not have decision making power
within their household. Taking a more holistic approach to such issues – where
literacy is seen as one component of a wider health and community awareness raising
programme – has proved more effective than literacy courses with messages about
family planning (Robinson-Pant, 1998). The diversity of teaching approaches and
learning structures within which literacy is now being introduced to women is also a
sign that planners recognise that whereas some women may learn better within less
conventional class settings, others prefer a traditional classroom and perhaps to learn
a second language rather than their mother tongue.
From the examples of innovative programmes reviewed so far, we can draw out
several underlying principles, which inform their design:
 Participatory approach to curriculum planning and design of the programme
 Learning environment and class structures which women participants find
appropriate (which may be mixed or women-only)
 Literacy skills should be relevant and useful, based on women’s views
 Flexible stance on language policy as related to language choice in the
classroom
 Critical attention to what ‘empowerment’ means to these women in this
context
 Holistic approach to literacy planning to ensure other support is provided (e.g.
access to credit, skills training)
13

Intensive training and support for facilitators/literacy trainers, plus
development of career structures for female staff
Above all, in these examples, women’s literacy is no longer seen as synonymous with
women’s education: there is critical attention to the literacy skills component, why it
is needed and how this fits with the wider aim of providing empowering education for
women. The next section will look more closely at other types of nonformal education
for adult women, and their links with literacy programmes.
5. Broadening the educational approach: skills development programmes for
women
As the above review has indicated, literacy programmes conducted in isolation from
other inputs are unlikely to provide the skills and confidence necessary to improve
women’s livelihoods. Recently, several key policy documents from the World Bank
and bilateral aid agencies (Oxenham et al 2002 & 2003, Torres 2001, Lauglo 2001,
DfID 2002) have stressed the need for a wider perspective on adult basic education.
Pointing to the past limitations of targeting women’s literacy alone, Oxenham et al
(2002) suggests taking a broader approach which could include various kinds of skill
training. This contrasts with the functional literacy programmes of the past, as the
assumption is not that women’s literacy is a necessary preliminary to vocational skill
training. Whereas much debate has been around “literacy first or literacy second?” in
relation to skills training (see Rogers 1997), planners are encouraged to look more
holistically at the differing combination of skill training that women may need in
specific contexts. Torres (2001) presents a model of Adult Basic Education and
Learning (ABEL), stressing the need to see women’s literacy within a wider strategy
on lifelong learning, similar to that supported in developed countries. There is now
more recognition too that many programmes which are labelled ‘women’s literacy’ in
fact already aim to encompass far more than reading and writing skills, and may
include confidence-building, business training, health education or child rearing skills.
The following section will give an overview of non-formal skills training programmes
for women, identifying examples of successful approaches.
5.i. Vocational training and education: a gender perspective
Within the field of vocational training in general, there have been major shifts in
approach with specific implications for women wanting to upgrade or learn new
skills. In the ‘80s, disillusionment with the large training institutions – which were
high cost and often training school leavers in unmarketable skills – led the World
Bank and other donors to switch their funding priorities towards primary and basic
education (World Bank, 1995). Within these institutions, there were few female
students and inevitably, they would be concentrated in courses around ‘female’ skills
based on their reproductive roles, such as domestic science or handicrafts. These areas
led to less profitable work than many of the ‘male’ skill training areas, and women’s
specific constraints, such as their lack of access to credit as legal minors, were never
addressed. The women trainees also faced similar difficulties within the institutions
as girls enrolling in secondary schools – no separate hostel facilities, male teachers,
problems in finding the fees, a heavy burden of domestic work and difficulties in
travel. Compared to male trainees, they often lacked confidence and the necessary
social networks with potential employers to find work after the course had ended
14
(Robinson-Pant, 2002). NGOs running income generating programmes for women
also encountered similar problems, with women finding they had trained in non
profitable areas of work (such as handicrafts – usually offered because female NGO
staff had only these skills to pass on) or that the local market was soon saturated with
their products.
Many national governments continue to run such vocational training institutes today
(Bennell and Segerstrom, 1998). However, now that skills training has come back
onto the donor agenda, there is greater diversity in the type of provision offered (ILO,
1999). Recognising that much vocational training in the past had not been in response
to employers’ requirements, there has been a shift towards closer partnerships
between training providers and employers and in many cases, sharing costs too,
through on-the-job training programmes. The move towards informal on-the-job
training has not necessarily been advantageous for women, as so few of them work in
the formal sector where such training is available. Similarly, where trade unions or
professional associations have taken over the role of training provider, women have
often been marginalized due to prejudice from male workers. However, some notable
examples of skills training for women have been provided through associations with a
strong or exclusive female presence, like SEWA (Self Employed Women’s
Association) in India – see Box C. In Peru, Womankind Worldwide has supported the
trade union movement in providing training for women in traditionally ‘male’ areas of
work, such as electrical work and shoe making.
Box C: Self Employed Women’s Association: India
SEWA is an organisation of poor, self-employed women working in occupations such
as selling vegetables, snacks, weaving, tailoring, domestic work and construction
labour. Established in Gujarat in 1972, SEWA now has a membership of 318, 527
women in India and aims to organise women workers for full employment through
training in technical and management skills, access to credit, co-operatives and
activism. Recognising that poor women in the informal sector require access to better
working conditions and higher incomes, SEWA has campaigned for legal changes –
an early success was the declaration by the Supreme Court that vendoring was a
fundamental right, thus freeing women from police harassment. Through skills
training programmes, SEWA has begun to challenge the divisions between women’s
and men’s traditional areas of work – enabling women to gain better paid work
through running milk co-operatives or entering weaving as a profession. SEWA’s
work was characterised early on by their bottom-up approach, based on where women
are now: skills training programmes and membership of credit schemes did not
require previous educational qualifications or even literacy skills. If women were
unable to sign their names to obtain a loan, they were encouraged to use their
photograph and thumbprint. This emphasis on widening membership through using a
range of communication continues today – within training programmes, role play and
video are used extensively, rather than introducing literacy as a necessary first step.
Source: USAID 1996, D’Souza 1995 and SEWA website: www.sewa.org
15
5.ii. What kind of skills training works for women?
The wider definition of what counts as “skills training” that has developed over the
past decade has important implications for women. Within NGO and government
programmes, there is increasing recognition that training provision in ‘hard’ technical
skills, whether electronics or weaving, is not enough to ensure that the trainee enters
profitable employment. Courses in complementary ‘soft’ skill development, such as
confidence-building, entrepreneurship, leadership, have particularly benefited women
trainees who often need to ‘catch up’ with male trainees in these areas. There has also
been more attention to the kind of technical skills provided, in the knowledge that
trainees need to gain “portable skills” to respond to the fast changing needs of the
employment market (Bennell, 1999). The growing convergence between academic
and vocational education (in terms of provision of ‘core competencies’) has meant
that women who might have ended up in ‘female’ skill training programmes now
have access to more generic skills development (including literacy and basic
education).
Within programmes specifically targeted at women – as within literacy – the more
innovative providers have aimed to challenge, rather than to reinforce women’s
existing roles. This does not mean that skills training is no longer provided in areas
around women’s reproductive role, but that the main consideration is for women to
gain access to work which is better paid and with better conditions. Drawing on
Moser’s terms (1993), this could be seen as addressing women’s strategic (long term)
gender needs (such as enhanced legal status) through providing skills training around
a practical (short term more immediate) gender need, such as increasing their income.
For example, a programme for training domestic workers in nutrition and hygiene in
Kenya run by the Child Welfare Society of Kenya, simultaneously worked to upgrade
the status of the profession through media campaigns (Barker et al, 2000: 38).
Similarly, a YWCA project in Addis Adaba provided English language training to
women servants, recognising that this would enable them to obtain better paid and
higher status work with expatriate households.
Box D: East Jerusalem YMCA vocational training programme for young
women
Using a three-pronged strategy to respond to the specific needs of women
trainees, East Jerusalem YMCA has ensured that skills provided lead to
employment opportunities. Their strategy involves co-ordinating a vocational
training centre in Jericho, an extension service unit offering credit and other
necessary support to young people setting up their own enterprises (after training
inputs), and a service offering career counselling specifically to women. Training
in the Jericho centre is demand-led, based on intensive surveys of local employers
and their needs. Women are now being trained in computer maintenance,
telecommunications and graphic design – all areas which are considered
traditionally ‘male’, higher status areas of employment. A strong publicity/
awareness-raising campaign was implemented to convince families to send their
daughters on the course, and to persuade employers to accept women in new
fields. Special provisions for women were established within the centre: separate
classrooms, a hostel, transport provision, modular-based courses and workshops
in self-assertion, as well as general business skills. The high costs of running this
programme are being addressed through offering maintenance services on a paid
16
basis to local businesses, to supplement donor income, though the political and
economic fragility of the area is a major constraint.
Sources: Robinson-Pant, A., 1999, Y Care International, 2002
Some NGOs have attempted to set up courses for women in non-conventional or
‘male’ areas of work. As in the YMCA case in Palestine (see Box D), this has been
most successful when the choice of skills training has been made in collaboration with
employers (and is in a profitable area) and when the specific support that women will
need during training and afterwards in employment has been identified. Such support
may include childcare, women-only hostels, bursaries, transportation, access to credit
or even legal reforms to enable women to own land in their own name or work in
similar conditions to men. Courses run on a modular or part-time basis also allow
women more flexibility if they need to take time off for maternity leave or childcare.
Research into women’s vocational training programmes run by NGOs has revealed
that the question of whether women learn more effectively in women-only or mixed
groups is not straightforward (Leach et al, 2000). Women-only classes can enable
women to catch up on skills which male trainees may already have (including
literacy) and provide a supportive environment to build up confidence and discuss
gender-related issues, such as harassment in the workplace. However, many womenonly projects have (like women’s literacy programmes) been regarded by participants
as second best, due to their limited funding and resources. Women’s skill training
projects can run the risk of limiting women to traditional and less profitable areas of
work. For example, in a programme run by an international NGO in Nepal, women
were offered training in kitchen gardening techniques (on the assumption that they
could then provide better nutrition to their families but not necessarily earn an extra
income), whereas men were invited to a training course on commercial agriculture. As
NGO staff assumed that women would not like to participate in a mixed group, they
were not encouraged to join the commercial agriculture course (Robinson-Pant,
2002).
Similarly, in respect to training approaches and structures, women may prefer a more
formal setting to informal or on-the-job training. A research study conducted in
Ethiopia, India, Peru and Sudan revealed that many women found the experience of
participating in a classroom training session empowering: “formal training…helped
develop both self-confidence and entrepreneurship” (Leach, 2000: v). Teaching based
on flipcharts or copying notes from a blackboard can disadvantage women who lack
the necessary literacy skills, whereas newly literate trainees may welcome the chance
to use and develop their reading and writing skills. Participatory approaches to
curriculum and programme design can enable trainers to respond to the women
trainees’ specific needs – whether around timing, location or teaching methods.
From the examples here, it is clear that skills training programmes for women can
only be empowering and profitable if planners draw on the wider definition of “skills”
and develop a more holistic approach to what may previously have been termed
“income generation”. The more successful programmes outlined above share the
following principles:
 Aim to offer a broad and flexible curriculum, to enable women to catch up in
areas such as leadership training, business skills, literacy, as well as technical
work-oriented skills such as electronics or agriculture.
17




Provide women with training in skills that can respond to changing market
requirements and are profitable, even if this means entering non-traditional
‘male’ areas of employment.
Recognise where women are now – in terms of their existing productive and
reproductive roles and constraints – and aim to build on these skills, whilst
also providing opportunities to enter new areas of work. This also involves
being aware of differences according to age, educational background and
ethnic group.
Create a supportive environment for women to learn new skills, based on
decisions around the relative advantages and disadvantages of: mixed versus
single-sex courses, formal versus informal training contexts, participatory
versus lecture-based training approaches and male versus female trainers.
Take a holistic approach to skills training provision, recognising that other
supportive components might include access to credit, raw materials,
childcare provision, campaigns for legal reform or changes in employment
practices and literacy instruction.
6. Analysing the linkages between women’s literacy and skills training
programmes
Although women’s literacy is often assumed to lead automatically into income
generating activities, the links made between literacy and vocational training may
actually have contributed to women’s high drop-out rates from such programmes. As
Stromquist notes (1997:17), “among poor women, literacy is not always their first
priority”, since they are struggling to make a living, with little time or energy left to
study. The rationale for providing skills training or income generating projects as a
follow-up to literacy has often been based on more pragmatic than educational
reasons: that women will be encouraged to attend classes if they see an immediate
economic benefit at the end. This has been an approach adopted by many agencies
using a ‘functional literacy’ approach, and has frequently led to poorly resourced and
conceived skills development programmes – run by literacy specialists and unlikely to
lead to improved employment (see Oxenham, 2003).
Women’s literacy and skills training programmes need to be seen first as integral
components of a broader approach to women’s basic education. Women’s literacy, as
we have seen, can include much more than reading and writing skills and may be
more around ‘awareness raising’ than literacy learning. Even when programmes do
focus on teaching literacy skills, these may not be ‘functional’ in an economic
context, perhaps enabling women to read magazines, religious texts or film posters.
Likewise, skills development programmes may not require participants to have basic
literacy skills (as in the SEWA example) – though women often need basic
educational qualifications to access more formal training programmes held in
vocational institutes (such as the YMCA centre in Jericho).
The recent policy move towards ‘literacy for livelihoods’ has however stressed the
importance of establishing the overlaps between livelihood components, such as skills
training, and adult literacy programmes (DfID, 2002). When literacy skills have been
acquired in the context of vocational training (this has been termed a “literacy
second” approach, Rogers 1999), participants are more likely to retain the skills they
have learnt through real life applications and practice. This kind of approach has
18
strong budgetary and organisational implications for Government Ministries and
NGOs – since literacy support could be bought in for specific programmes, such as
community forestry or agricultural extension, rather than being run as a separate
programme under the Education Ministry or sector. The limitation may lie in the
implication that only one kind of literacy (the literacy skills needed for employment
or skill training purposes) will be provided through such programmes.
Although recent policy documents on adult basic education (e.g. Lauglo, 2001
Oxenham, 2001) have acknowledged that women tend to be the largest group of
participants, little attention has been given to the gender dimensions of the linkages
between literacy and livelihoods. As this paper has argued, the apparently poor
internal efficiency rates of women’s literacy programmes may in part be due to
planners’ lack of understanding around the reasons why women want to learn to read
and write, and a resulting failure to provide a curriculum based on their everyday
needs and roles. Reliance on low paid or volunteer teachers within such programmes,
together with limited resources for training and materials, have been a major
constraint against producing high quality education for women. Women’s literacy
rates have tended to be used as a proxy for educational achievement, supporting the
notion that ‘literacy’ is synonymous with ‘education’ for women. The experiences
described in this paper call for a broader definition of adult basic education, to
encompass a range of skill development – both hard and soft vocational skills, as well
as access to a variety of ‘literacies’ (such as legal literacy) and languages.
19
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