Literacy, distance learning and ICT
Contents
Abbreviations
Part 1: Experience in the use of ICT and distance learning for literacy
Initial acquisition of literacy skills
Sustaining literacy within wider literacy contexts
Part 2: The role of ICT in developing programmes with a literacy component
Health improvement programmes
Safe water programmes
Livelihoods improvement programmes
Programmes in other areas
The role of community resource centres
Part 3: ICT and distance learning for training literacy workers
Evidence on the benefits of ICT and distance learning
Evidence on the disadvantages of ICT and distance learning
Part 4: The potential for the use of ICT and distance learning
Extending literacy
Improving literacy
Summary of conclusions
References
Jason Pennells
IEC
Cambridge
Jason.pennells@iec.ac.uk
www.iec.ac.uk
14 June 2005
106732344
Page 1 of 40
Abbreviations
ABET
AMREF
BBC
CD-ROM
CoL
COLLIT
CRC
DVD
EFA
FEPRA
GMR
GPS
ICT
IEC
IRI
LGMs
NFE
ODL
OLSET
OS
Reflect
ToT
UNESCO
WIFIP
Adult basic education and training
African Medical Relief Foundation
British Broadcasting Corporation
Compact disk – read-only memory
Commonwealth of Learning
The CoL Literacy Project
Community resource centre
Digital versatile disk
Education for All
Functional Education Programme for Rural Areas
Global Monitoring Report
Global positioning satellite
Information and communication technology1
International Extension College
Interactive radio instruction
Learner-generated materials
Nonformal education
Open and distance learning
Open Learning Systems Educational Trust
Open School
Regenerated Freirean literacy through empowering community
techniques
Training of trainers
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation
Women in Fisheries Industry Project
Logically and grammatically, the term ‘ICT’ should be used in the plural, as it encompasses a range
of information and communications technologies, not one technology. It has been used here in the
singular, however, since common usage is to speak of ICT in this way. This may be changed to render
it in the plural throughout, if preferred.
1
106732344
Page 2 of 40
Part 1: Experience in the use of ICT and distance learning for literacy
This section discusses the questions: in what circumstances and with what results has
the use of ICT and distance learning had a part to play, directly or indirectly in a) the
initial acquisition of literacy skills and b) sustaining literacy within wider literacy
environments?
Initial acquisition of literacy skills
ICT in various forms has been used with some success to support the initial
acquisition of literacy skills. The possibilities and realisation have differed greatly
according to the environment in which programmes have taken place. In wellresourced settings in wealthy, developed countries, the picture is not surprisingly
different from that in poorer, less developed countries.
In the UK, ICT has been used to enhance literacy in primary schools under a
government initiative, the National Grid for Learning, with various generally
favourable examples documented by the Basic Skills Agency and evaluated by the
government’s Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED). A consortium of bodies,
the National Association of Advisers for Computers in Education (NAACE), provides
resources such as example literacy plans for teachers to use ICT in literacy teaching.
Similar experience exists in other wealthy school environments, such as the USA.
However, even in such privileged settings, teachers are often not clear on how to
embed the use of ICT into their teaching, even when the necessary hardware and
software are provided. Teachers require training and institutional support to enable
their pupils to benefit from the ICT intended to be available for developing literacy
learning in the classroom (Waite 2004).
In UK, such training has been made available on a large scale by the Department for
Education and Skills, which in 1999 allocated £230 million to help increase teachers’
competence in ICT. In England, approximately 340,000 teachers (83% of those
eligible) signed up to the programme in the first eighteen months of the scheme. The
total budgeted expenditure on ICT under the National Grid for Learning from 1998 to
2004 was £1.8 billion, distributed to Local Education Authorities. Whilst these figures
include all teachers and all aspects of ICT use in schools, not exclusively those
specific to literacy teaching, the latter are covered within this provision (OFSTED
2002).
Whilst ICT has been claimed to be, after the teacher, the most expensive item in the
British school classroom and also one of the most effective ways to teach literacy,
most uses of ICT in this context are accessing digitized learning resources (which are
in many cases interactive) in the classroom. These resources are either stored on disk
in the school or accessed through the internet. The teacher supporting the child’s
learning is in general the classroom teacher rather than a remote distance teacher, and
in some instances it is the classroom teacher who accesses and makes available to the
class the learning resources (NAACE 2002).
Adult literacy and numeracy learning in UK has also incorporated ICT in recent years.
A government sponsored scheme, the University for Industry (Ufi)/LearnDirect, has
106732344
Page 3 of 40
used ICT in conjunction with face-to-face tutoring at study centres, also offering
online (downloadable) resource packs such as ‘Using ICT to develop literacy and
numeracy’ (Ufi/Basic Skills Agency 2002). This has been considered to have good
potential, including the development of use of media such as digital cameras and
video more than has so far been observed (Mellar et al 2004).
Another evaluation found that incorporating the use of ICT into adult literacy learning
had a positive motivational impact, especially for women learners, and that effective
integration with basis skills teaching was vital, as was understanding the changing
role of the tutor when ICT is used. Issues identified were the need adequately to
address different learning styles, the importance of technical support, availability of
ICT and tutors, and the high cost of using ICT. Online learning for literacy and
numeracy learning was seen to be still in very early stages of development, even in
the well-resourced UK environment (Samuels 2001).
A considerable range of computer-based learning resources, designed both for initial
literacy learning and continuing literacy development, is available in UK, produced by
various commercial companies, often in collaboration with recognised accreditation
bodies (eg, materials of CTAD, Cambridge Training and Development, illustrated at
www.ctad.co.uk/). Most of these resources are, however, self-standing computerbased learning packages rather than distance learning materials, although in some
cases online support is offered as a complement to the materials packages.
In the studies and research reports cited above, little data appears as to the scale of the
engagement in use of ICTs, or else the descriptions are of relatively small scale
samples for qualitative rather than quantitative assessment of the use of ICTs. So,
including in the case of nationally available programmes, the real impact of ICTs
overall remains to a large extent an open question, even in as well-resourced an
environment as UK. The situation with regard to quantified evidence in developing
countries is more limited and piecemeal, as might be expected, including both
descriptions of discrete projects and macro-level estimates of figures such as
telecommunications penetration and numbers of computer users, but generally lacking
clear descriptions of the proportion of ICT and distance learning and its effect as
against the number of literacy learners and potential learners.
Broadcasting had previously been used for promoting adult literacy for some time in
the UK. Hargreaves (1980) describes in detail the history and experience of the
BBC’s Adult Literacy Campaign from 1972. This used both television and radio to
engage adult learners and to train volunteer tutors, along with handbooks and printed
materials.
Looking to the future, Hargreaves draws several conclusions from the experience of
the BBC campaign, both regarding the UK and also wider application. For the UK,
specific experiential evidence underpinned conclusions suggesting guidelines for
future programmes.

The television campaign helped reduce the stigma of illiteracy and increased
awareness that help with literacy learning was available. However, over three
years, only a small proportion of the estimated illiterate and sub-literate
(glossed as those unable to read a popular newspaper or instructions on a
106732344
Page 4 of 40
typical food packaging) population took up the learning opportunities offered
by the campaign.

Future efforts at reaching and supporting learners should be focused
predominantly at the local level rather than in national campaigns.

Literacy and numeracy should be integrated with each other.

Highlighting literacy as an urgent issue and a problem to be addressed, as a
television campaign does, inadvertently may mark illiteracy as a stigma and
make literacy learning less attractive rather than more so; thus adult basic
education should be ‘normalised’ as part of everyday life and broadcasters
should ‘simply make adult basic education series a regular, normal part of our
bill of fare.’

The greatest lesson was the importance of broadcasters and educationalists
collaborating closely, and the importance of continual engagement of
programme planners with learners, tutors and local education authorities to
match broadcasts to needs.

As the impact of a broadcast is unknowable in advance, planning and
resourcing the local literacy support services which the broadcasts urged
viewers to engage with is problematic.
Extrapolating from the UK experience to other contexts, Hargreaves suggests some
points of general application.

Engaging potential learners becomes harder, and with diminishing returns,
after the initially interested wave of recruits.

Most adults with literacy difficulties are unlikely to seek tuition, and television
programmes and self-study support materials can be of value to such people
who would not join classes.

The more sophisticated technologies become prevalent, the harder it is for
people to admit to lacking literacy and numeracy skills, as the further from the
norm they may perceive themselves to be.

Educational broadcasting is inextricably liked with agendas of social justice
and inclusion, and broadcasters thus find logical alignment and collaboration
with social development agencies.

The education must reach the intended learners ‘where they are’ in terms of
having popular programme design and style and modest educational aims, and
in being of a form which can be transmitted at mass viewing time, without
alienating the mass audience.

For mass-viewing broadcasts, in situations where the intended literacy learner
may be watching among literate fellow viewers, the learning content should be
106732344
Page 5 of 40
handled obliquely, so that the learner-viewer and the interested non-learner
viewer can watch side by side without disclosing the nature of the individual’s
interest to those around him. (Similar consideration may be transferred to
programmes and written information concerned with other sensitive areas such
as HIV/AIDS education and contraception and reproductive health).

Programmes should be made as close as possible to the date of transmission,
and incorporate feedback from the audience and issues arising into the
broadcasts, thus making the programmes more engaging and relevant to
learners.

Sustaining literacy broadcasting after initial project funding is problematic.

Volunteer facilitators to provide learning support are a very considerable
resource, drawing on the goodwill of the community.
Whilst the audience of the BBC Adult Literacy Campaign had been open, and the
number of non-literate adults in Britain was unknown (estimated at approximately two
million), the programme’s records indicate that 65,000 volunteer tutors were recruited
initially, and approximately 125,000 learners had been ‘under tuition’ at some time
between the start of the programme in 1974 and 1978, perhaps between one third and
a half of these actively attending classes (the remainder being registered with local
education authorities and voluntary organisations but not actively engaging in the
programme). Thus, the programme was significant in scale but nevertheless relatively
minor in the numbers who actively participated, in proportion to the number of
potential learners. A major benefit of the campaign, however, was considered the
awareness it raised among the literate community of the issue of illiteracy and the
engagement of many members of the public as voluntary literacy tutors (Hargreaves
1980).
In Australia, a range of technologies, innovative in their day but often quickly
superseded, have been used to good effect by various programmes in the service of
developing adult literacy. These have included audio-cassettes in combination with
printed text, radio, interactive videodisc, narrowcast television, teleconferencing, and
various desktop computer applications such as hypermedia, word processing,
language-drills programmes, shell programmes and text manipulation and storytelling programmes. These are summarised below; whilst the cases described here are
Australian, much the same applies to the use of these technologies elsewhere in
principle, and many of the descriptions have parallel examples in North America
(Anderson1991).

Videodisc was a forerunner of Digital Versatile Disk (DVD) which enabled
sound, video, still photographs, graphics and text to be presented on a largeformat disk using a special player, linked to a desktop computer. The disk also
included the capacity for rapid random access to all of its content and linking
among the various media components. To complement this for use in
interactive learning, the computer needed to load additional programme data
from floppy disks and to have a touch screen. Language learning programmes
(to develop both speaking and reading skills for learners of English as a
second language) were developed whereby, for example, a learner could touch
106732344
Page 6 of 40
a part of the screen (a word, a person in a still-photograph and video story, or a
symbol) to hear spoken either a written text which has appeared on the screen
or a response to the choice made by the learner as communicated through the
touch screen. In a well-documented case, ‘The Aussie Barbie’, learners
engaged in social interactions with characters at an archetypical Australian
family barbecue. The student could interact with a character and hear or read
the character’s response, according to whether the student’s choice as
communicated through the touch screen.

Narrowcasting involves television transmission to a defined set of receivers
and thus a controlled or enrolled audience, in contrast to broadcasting, which
is essentially open in its audience. For literacy learning with Aboriginal
communities, this was used in Australia through a system whereby a live
television programme (with previously produced and recorded insert
components) was transmitted via satellite, only those satellite decoding
devices located at the registered receiving centres being activated to receive
the programme. It was a synchronous medium, in that all the learners at each
of the participating centres needed to be in place at the time of the
transmission (as with interactive radio instruction). This narrowcasting, which
was a one-way television transmission, was used in conjunction with multidirectional teleconferencing, which enabled the members of each of the
participating groups to speak with one another and to the presenter and panel
members in the studio from where the programme was transmitted, during and
immediately following the transmission. Thus the matters raised in the
television programme could be discussed freely through the network of
speaker telephones, one at each site.

Teleconferencing has also been used separately from narrowcasting, including
for training of literacy facilitators. For direct literacy teaching and learning,
teleconferencing has been used in conjunction with printed worksheets and fax
machines, a literacy teacher interacting with learners far removed from her,
according to planned and prepared group sessions. In this case, the learner
group is supported by a facilitator among them who acts as the ‘eyes’ of the
group and who speaks to the remote teacher relaying to the teacher points of
the group’s activity and responses that are not apparent through the aural
medium.

Hypercard, a highly innovative and user-friendly computer programme
environment introduced by Apple in 1987, enabled learners to create nonlinear ‘hypermedia’ linkages among sounds, text and graphics using an Apple
Macintosh personal computer, rather as websites and DVDs now can contain
(or have links to) components in different media. The user could browse at
will throughout the contents of the items stored on pages or ‘cards’ on the
computer, using a predominantly graphic interface by clicking on items on the
screen (in contrast to text-driven commands or sequentially organised
information in more traditional programmes available at that time).
Programmes were compiled and available on many topics (not requiring
highly specialised computer programming skills), and in many cases could be
customised by the user, changing the content and the links among items to suit
106732344
Page 7 of 40
individual interests. The graphic interface, accessibility and versatility of the
programme made it well suited to use in adult literacy learning.

Language drill (written and oral) and numeracy drill programmes included
flexible models using interactive videodisks or Hypercard, and also more
restricted (but more widely accessible, due to less technically-specific
hardware requirements) computer-based learning programmes where a set
range of responses was programmed and learners were kept narrowly focused
on a particular language skill. The essence of learning drills is that the learner
repeats the task as often as necessary, getting immediate feedback on whether
his answer is correct or not. Whilst limited in scope, it has the side-benefit in
the case of computer-based examples, of helping learners become familiar
with computers with relatively low technical demands in addition to the basic
demands of the learning activity.

More open than language drills are computer-based programmes which set the
learner tasks to manipulate text to make sense, eg, by guessing, searching,
rearranging, selecting or re-sequencing words. More demanding tasks can be
made by asking the learner to contribute and insert words. A further step along
the continuum from narrow drill to free composition is represented by storytelling programmes, where, for example, the start of a story is given and the
learner is asked to continue it, using clues and suggestions. In some cases, this
can be in the form of an interactive disk, where the course of the story unfolds
according to choices made by the learner, but

Shell programmes provided a template design which allowed users to make
their own learning materials to a set format or structure, entering content into
the frameworks provided. Standard word processing programmes allowed
literacy learning activities to be designed which engaged the learner in writing
and publishing for others to look at and give feedback on written text.
In less well-resourced parts of the world, ICT has been used for some time as a
component of literacy and numeracy learning. To enable this to happen, the human as
well as physical capacity possibilities and constraints have played a decisive role and
conscious efforts have been required to develop these and plan educational
programmes consistently with them (Marshall and Ruohonen 1998).
A review of experience in the use of ICT and distance learning for literacy and
livelihoods at a conference organised by CoL in Vancouver in November 2004
suggests that whilst ICT has been and continues to be significant in this field, in
comparison to the scale of the challenge its use is minor. The exception to this is in
the use of radio, which has enjoyed by far the largest use and penetration and looks set
to continue to do so, despite the advent of more recent technologies (CoL 2005).
A recent study by CoL of a project it sponsored in Zambia and India, COLLIT
(Farrell 2004), concluded that there were noticeable positive changes resulting from
the use of ICT in the literacy learning activities. The learners were diverse within the
project locations in each country, but in both cases were predominantly rural and
initial literacy learners (though the project also included urban learners, including
some with more extensive education background, who were engaged overtly in
106732344
Page 8 of 40
gaining computer literacy rather than basic literacy with the aid of ICT. In India, most
of the learners were young, illiterate women engaged in agriculture, from
disadvantaged castes (in the larger centres, there was also a second category, mainly
young men with secondary or higher education, engaging in computer literacy as
distinct from basic literacy). In Zambia, similarly the large majority of literacy
learners were women, including both school-age and adult learners (ranging from 1069 years, mostly between 25 and 40). Most had had prior exposure to radio, many had
seen but not used a television and a camera, whilst few had seen an audio cassette
recorder and very few had heard of a computer, prior to engaging with the
programme.
The project implementation differed in the two countries, and also exhibited wide
variations among centres within each country, but overall in the project, literacy
learners had access to computers, television, video players, digital cameras,
photocopiers, scanners (intended access to internet, telephone and fax was not
realised), supported by technical resource people and access to prepared learning
material in various forms, both electronic and on paper.
Learners gained in self esteem and commitment as they gained ICT skills and control
of the technology; in doing so, they effected a shift to their own priorities in the
project, using ICT not only for the ‘educational’ goals of the project but also to serve
other aspects of their life. Teamwork grew from the empowerment they experienced
as they took charge of producing materials together. Furthermore, there was perceived
to be an incentive for inter-agency cooperation in order to sustain the cost of the
infrastructure and services learners had come to value. Learners commented that it
was easier to learn and remember when printed materials were supported by video and
audio materials. ICT also empowered centre staff as trainers and provided a
combination of outside-generated material (included print material which was then
scanned and adapted to computer format) and learner-generated material.
On the downside, the project was not without difficulties, and the browsing for
literacy resource materials which staff did undertake (not through the centres but
elsewhere) petered out, as the material available on the web was not in the appropriate
language. A more fundamental concern is that the underlying approach and
conception of the project was to some extent technology-driven, and there was an
ambiguity as to how far the project was how far it was supply-driven with a set
agenda as opposed to demand-led and learner-controlled (what Rogers, in a forward to
the evaluation, characterises respectively as ‘the educational approach’ and ‘literacy
as a part of social development.’)
Regarding sustainability, the report concluded that the longer term prosperity of the
model based on community learning centres would depend on the centres being
multifunctional and used by multiple stakeholders; establishing a high degree of
community ownership; encouraging revenue-generating entrepreneurial activity by
centre managers; and the integration of the literacy programme and its use of ICT into
institutional programmes as opposed to viewing these as peripheral adjuncts.
Additionally, the disparity in levels of access to ICT between the better resourced and
connected centres and those which were more remote and less so, meant that for some
centres the model was more satisfactory than for others. The scale of the project was
small, considering the scale of the potential clientele in India and Zambia:
106732344
Page 9 of 40
approximately 425 learners in India and 620 in Zambia. Slightly over half of the
Zambian participants had access to computers. Cost data available do not offer
analysis of the costs per learner.
In the Caribbean, Cuba collaborated with Haiti to use radio, in conjunction with
printed learners’ guides and face-to-face support by literacy monitors, to address the
literacy-learning needs of Haiti’s largely illiterate and sub-literate population (where
only 8% of children were estimated to finish secondary school). Drawing on Cuba’s
own experience of literacy development and feasibility studies and piloting before
expanding to nationwide implementation. Radio lessons were also recorded onto
cassette tapes for use in locations without radio reception. As well as using the local
language, Creole, materials were developed for teaching French as a second language.
(UNESCO 2002a).
The use of distance learning for literacy development has been mooted and indeed
cited as an established component of literacy programmes for a considerable period of
time. However, in some cases the rhetoric is not matched by the reality of
implementation. For example, a regional CoL-sponsored symposium on women’s
literacy and distance learning held at Allama Iqbal Open University in 1993 found
relatively little evidence of substantial work in this area (CoL 1993). Most of the
projects described at the symposium which cited distance education as an approach
were speculative, small-scale or used distance education for literacy teaching only in a
marginal sense of printed primers with local-level literacy facilitators. The most
developed and established case discussed was AIOU, whose Functional Education
Programme for Rural Areas (FEPRA) and Integrated Functional Literacy project
combined print, facilitators and audio-visual support material in the form of audio
cassettes and flip charts. Intensive human support was involved, including extension
workers to support the local facilitators. A detailed case study of FEPRA was
published (Warr 2002) which provided a description which served as a basis for
subsequent adaptations of the design elsewhere (eg, the Adult Basic Education
Programme, ABEP, at University of Fort Hare in South Africa).
In the Canary Islands, an independent radio station, Radio ECCA started in 1963 to
broadcast literacy and numeracy programmes for illiterate adults in the islands. The
programmes were intended for use in study groups led by facilitators trained by Radio
ECCA. Along with the radio element were lesson notes, posters on the themes of each
lesson, activity sheets and planned schemes of work. This model was influential on
the development of similar radio-based programmes in Latin America. (Dodds 1996)
A concise review of experience in literacy and post-literacy programmes by radio in
Latin American countries (also including, rather incongruously, the BBC programme
in Britain) which was produced following an international symposium on experiences
in mass literacy education by radio illustrates the wide extent and seriousness with
which radio was adopted in Latin America to address literacy development, especially
notably for rural peasant populations, outside the school environment. Various of the
programmes had an explicit social development agenda along with the technical
purpose of helping people to learn to read and write. Programmes included basic
literacy and post-literacy, some also offering complete primary school-equivalency
curricula, and were designed variously for youth and adults. Most were open access,
and whilst some used public broadcasters others had their own transmission facilities.
106732344
Page 10 of 40
Data on the numbers of learners who benefited, the costs and the outputs of these
undertakings in terms of literacy gains, are piecemeal and scarce, but the overall
conclusion is one of highly valuable successes in addressing both educational and
social needs (Fuenzalida 1992).
As regards experimental programmes in the use of educational television for literacy
learning in the 1960s and 1970s, a review of open and distance learning research in
primary and adult basic education (Yates 1998) found little positive impact to report.
Citing a range of studies, the overall picture to emerge was that costs were high while
learning gains were marginal, and projects were not sustainable beyond initial project
funding. Most of the use made of television for literacy was within schools or for
secondary level out of school education, rather than for basic literacy learning.
In the review by Yates which found little literacy learning benefit arising from use of
educational television, however, examples of successful print-based distance
education were identified in Project Acesso in Brazil (Oliveira 1988) and ‘Packet A’
in Indonesia. Whilst the former had relatively low learner numbers (in the hundreds),
the latter had mass enrolments (eight million, sixty per cent of them women, reported
at the time of writing). The ‘Packet A’ programme included basic literacy training and
post-literacy follow up (Yates 1998).
Sustaining literacy within wider literacy contexts
There is extensive experience of using radio in South America, and subsequently in
Papua New Guinea and in Africa, for the teaching of mathematics, science, English
and Spanish in primary schools, using variations of the approach of interactive radio
instruction (IRI). This set of techniques grew out of a well documented Nicaragua
Radio Mathematics Project, and has evolved into the integrated primary curriculum
‘English in Action’ programmes developed and delivered by OLSET in South Africa.
In South Africa, a range of open and distance learning uses for the media were
identified in a discussion document in 1993, comparing international experience with
South African, and looking ahead to the part various media might be expected to play
in the country’s development. Media considered as having the most immediate
relevance and potential were specially produced newspapers for adult basic education
and school education (in the face of the lack of textbooks for the majority population,
under the legacy of the apartheid regime) and radio programmes (Botha 1993).
A range of contexts where distance learning and ICT have been used to support
literacy are discussed in a compilation of case studies produced as a reader for an MA
course in nonformal and adult basic education at a distance (IoE and IEC 1996). The
cases include All India Radio’s nonformal education broadcasts for rural
development, All India Radio’s farm and home programme, the Adult Basic
Education Programme at University of Fort Hare in South Africa, a radio learning
group campaign on water and health in Northern Ghana, a primary health care
campaign in Eastern Sudan, INADES-fondation training of farmers by
correspondence in Cameroon, the distance education programme of AMREF, the
African Medical and Research Foundation, mass functional literacy campaigns in
Ghana using print and audio media, and lessons from around the world in the use of
radio for promoting literacy. Whilst the experiences and the scales and levels of
106732344
Page 11 of 40
success are varied, the overall evidence is that literacy development by open and
distance learning and ICT, particularly radio, has been shown to be a viable and in
many situations necessary strategy to adopt.
A more recent collection of perspectives on adult basic education at a distance
contains further reflection on experience and potential for ICT and distance learning
(Yates and Bradley 2000). Among the chapters are reviews of the use of distance
learning for nomads and refugees, including along with discussion of media-based
programmes for nomadic pastoralist and migrant fishing communities in Africa, the
European TOPILOT media-based scheme to support travellers (Pennells and
Ezeomah 2000), and a more general survey of uses of ODL programmes in support of
literacy (Reddi and Dighe 2000). The TOPILOT scheme and others are also described
in a collection considering open schooling around the world, for children and for
adults (Bradley 2003).
Considering the needs of a single country, Somalia, in detail, an MA dissertation in
1990 concluded at that time (before the subsequent period of severe social disruption
which the country was to experience) that radio, together with face-to-face meetings,
had a strong part to play for various educational purposes (Hadi 1990). This
dissertation also reviewed the use of radio for education around the world, finding
extensive use of the medium for a range of audiences.
The role and value of using ICT in sustaining and continuing literacy learning has
various dimensions (Rogers, Maddox et al 1999). Benefits which have been identified
include the motivational effect of writing on the internet, the opportunity for
inexpensive distribution of large amounts of material, the spontaneous formation of
international study circles, relating to a constructivist approach to sharing and valuing
alternative wisdoms, and economies of recent printing technologies. Conversely,
however, challenges and possible limitations involved in the use of ICT include that
ICT relies on international languages, often not available to learners, and the question
of how to contexualise material which has been gathered together in an online collage
from diverse sources.
On the benefit side, farmers have been noted as preferring what they perceive to be
‘up to date’ online material to extensive printed booklets; ICT can draw in remote
learners as participants, not just as consumers; and ICT enables some things to be
done which, whilst not being in themselves new, were formerly too costly and which
are now affordable. Additionally, problems of ICT access and skills which present a
barrier between programme designers and learners may be avoided in cases where
email and the web are used to provide interactive support to facilitators, who then
support learners, rather than used to attempt to engage directly with learners. For
example, facilitators may have access to discussion-based resources which they then
download and use with their study groups, and the facilitators may also be members
of a network sharing information and resources, such as in the case of COLLITT and
CERP, where, at best, materials were shared among dispersed facilitators through
ICT.
Considering the special case of providing educational opportunities for refugees, a
review of experiences of using open and distance learning in Africa from 1980 to
1995 and lessons learned with guidelines for action was compiled by IEC on behalf of
106732344
Page 12 of 40
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Thomas 1996). For this
category of learners and potential learners, the educational needs were in many ways
the same as for other people, but the extraordinary circumstances in which they found
themselves meant that special provision was needed, depending on the specific case,
both in terms of curriculum and of delivery. Across the continent, a range of
responses had been made to the situation of refugees using distance learning,
especially using print and radio, and to some extent audio cassettes, along with faceto-face meetings in study groups, generally supported by a facilitator.
Part 2: The role of ICT in developing programmes with a literacy
component
In this section, the questions are considered: does and can ICT play a productive role
in the development of programmes for which strengthening literacy skills is an
important component, for example, in the areas of better health, safe water, improved
livelihoods etc? What role can community resource centres play in this regard?
There have been a large number of nonformal education programmes using elements
of distance learning over the years, and this seems set to continue as new technologies
become increasingly available. These include mobile phones (particularly text
messaging); small-scale and local production and distribution of sound and images by
smaller, more powerful and cheaper cameras and cheaper and more convenient
computer software and hardware; portable FM radio broadcasting equipment and
satellite; and digital changes in printing technology, making local production of
materials (both learner generated and trainer provided) more accessible and
affordable.
Such possibilities are incorporated into the pool of options from which to draw, whilst
older technologies such as centrally produced television, radio and printed material,
and local learning circles, continue to be seen as useful and appropriate. Various
studies and reviews have documented these, including a study by Siaciwena (2000),
reviews by Dodds (1996), a conference paper (Spronk 1999), a PhD thesis (Myers
2004), a collection of papers (Yates and Bradley 2000), a research review (Yates
1998) and studies by Perraton (2000a; 2000b) and Perraton and Creed (2000).
As long ago as 1982, a review of media in basic education and agricultural extension
suggested that mass media were effective in supporting post-literacy learning but not
so for initial literacy or numeracy learning (Perraton 1982). In particular, radio was
seen at that time as being effective for agricultural extension. Additionally, radio was
seen to have great potential for training extension agents, and this appeared to be
borne out, two decades later, in evaluating the shift of INADES-formation from direct
teaching of farmers to training extension workers (Perraton 2000b).
An analysis of the costs of some adult basic education projects which used distance
learning methods found comparisons with campus-based or conventional face-to-face
learning are difficult, particularly at the level of basic education, as data are in short
supply and points of comparison are hard to apply (Perraton 2000b). However,
Perraton was able to conclude that in one example of radio broadcasts to farmers in
Malawi, the cost per listener hour was extremely low. For other examples, including
106732344
Page 13 of 40
radio schools in Latin America, a Zambia radio education campaign on cooperatives,
INADES-formation’s agriculture courses for farmers and the Functional Education
Project for Rural Areas in Pakistan, costs tended overall to be higher than for primary
schooling but lower than alternative training at centres for adults where such existed.
The scale of the projects considered ranged from 190,000 students in Accion Cultural
Popular (ACPO) in Columbia to 573 students in INADES-formation in Cameroon.
A detailed discussion of the rise and fall of ACPO illustrates how operating from the
grassroots and evolving slowly from small beginnings, gathering support and having a
clear mission throughout, can be extremely effective, whilst the very popularity of
community-oriented mass media programme and antagonising those in power can
lead to the demise of even such an eminently successful programme as ACPO (Fraser
and Restrepo-Estrada 1998).
The ActionAid-originated ‘Reflect’ approach has evolved over the past decade to
include in some instances an element of ICT. Reflect started as a synthesis of
participatory rural appraisal techniques and learner-led literacy and development
practice, informed by the development philosophy of Paulo Freire and participatory
approaches advocated by Robert Chambers (1983). The Reflect ICT projects
challenge the technicist assumptions of ‘ICT4D’ (ICT for development) from the
position of placing grass-roots control and community dynamics at the heart of the
undertaking, as opposed to a top-down provision of infrastructure. The aim is to build
people’s capacity to identify and articulate their information needs and to empower
them socially, politically and economically – not predominantly to provide access to
ICT (Rogers 2004; Street 2001).
Beardon (2005a) describes three examples of Reflect ICT, in Burundi, India and
Uganda. By the nature of Reflect, each manifestation of the approach takes a unique
form, depending on the local situation and community decisions and concerns. In
Uganda, WorldSpace radio was used with internet and digital cameras as part of the
participant-led development activities. In India, pictures, audio, video, television and
print were used by Reflect circles at resource centres. In Burundi, radio, newspapers,
print, internet and telephone were used as contributing tools by the participants. In
contrast to COLLIT described above in Part 1, Reflect may – but does not necessarily
– include literacy and technology: whether it does or not depends on the individual
Reflect circle and its priorities and preferences.
Beardon (2005b) discusses, in a critical reflection on the effects of ICT on
development, how the benefits and value that ICT can add to development projects in
terms of strengthening a culture of rights, empowerment and diversity may not be
realised, and indeed the opposite may occur if ICT is not understood and used within
a social and political context. The potential benefit of ICT, in this interpretation, is to
maximise people’s active participation in the development of their communities, by
enabling them to communicate their views and access information more effectively.
But less positive effects may also come about.
In India, for example, poorer sectors of the community became better informed about
their rights and entitlements through the information they gained through the
communications media available to the Reflect circles and through this more able to
place their demands and influence decisions. In Burundi, information accessed
106732344
Page 14 of 40
through the radio enabled vulnerable people to make better informed decisions about
when to return home from refugee camps. However, in Uganda, as well as in Burundi,
although the ICT available through the Reflect activities was seen as of great value
(particularly radio) as a communication tool, use of the radio was often controlled
exclusively by the men, and women were sometimes neither able to listen to the radio
when the men took the radio away or else left it with instructions that he women are
not to use it, nor when the radio was in the house and they, as women, were too busy
working to listen to it or it was tuned to programmes of interest to the men rather than
to the women.
Further, generic problems with ICT Beardon suggests are cultural homogenisation and
the devaluing and atrophying of traditional ways of storing and sharing information;
the creation of an employable but weak workforce who can be employed in
exploitative relationships with their IT skills unless they can appropriate the
technology, whether at local level or in terms of the globalised economy and
workforce; and information used as a competitive tool for exploitation,
marginalisation and maintaining dominance by those who have information and
control its availability to those who do not.
Beardon concludes that for ICT to add value to people’s lives and improve their
livelihoods, people must be able to define the uses of technology and integrate it into
their own lives whilst also having access to expert advice on the selection of hardware
and software, and policies which both enable communications and also recognise the
value of the knowledge which the end user brings regarding their needs, strategies,
structural constraints and considerations.
In other cases, ICT can and does play a vital role in the process of developing
programmes. It enables experts to work together; documents and other resources to be
collaboratively written, compiled, edited, evaluated and adapted; resources to be
accessed; and good practice and materials to be shared and widely distributed and
validated by peers.
Health improvement programmes
AMREF has used a newspaper column ‘Dr AMREF’ over many years in East Africa.
This is simply a short newspaper column written in the form of letters, in response to
questions from readers or identified as of significance by AMREF and amenable to
explanation and awareness-raising through such a medium. The direct audience is
limited to those literate and who have access to and read newspapers, and thus is
essentially a literate and relatively privileged audience, though an unquantified,
informal wider dissemination and effect of the column through the community is
assumed (Shaffer 1990).
WIFIP, the Women in Fisheries Industry Project, near Kisumu in Kenya, on the
shores of Lake Victoria, uses radio programmes to support and mobilise face-to-face
learning circles engaged in various income-generating and health education courses.
Based on the FEPRA model adapted to local needs and circumstances, WIFIP is not
itself centrally focused on literacy teaching, but its courses support the maintenance
and development of literacy and of numeracy, applied for very specific economic and
health-related purposes. Awareness and information on HIV/AIDS is a strong
106732344
Page 15 of 40
component, as are simple book-keeping, budgeting and accounting for the fish
processors and sellers who participate (Dodds, Obare and Joricka 2004; IEC 2005).
In the Solomon Islands, traditional birth attendants and midwives, living on islands
scattered over a vast area, benefited from the use of videos of birth procedures and of
complications and how to recognise and respond to them, in a project of the Ministry
of Health with technical support and training materials from the British Royal College
of Nursing. Whereas even a fully trained midwife would be expected to have had the
benefit of only very limited exposure to the range of possible birth complications
whilst undertaking institution-based training, and the traditional birth attendants
would have had no theoretical training or technical obstetric guidance in such events,
though they may have experienced some of them first-hand in the course of their
occupation, by using videos specially compiled to illustrate these and with spoken
narrative explaining the appropriate courses of action and techniques to use, a very
great benefit could be gained throughout the country.
Remaining still largely as potential, rather than as widespread evidence of actual
benefits of ICT in the area of health, projects have adopted telehealth approaches in
Australia, China and Ghana, sharing expertise with remote health centres in rural
areas, variously though the media of audiographics2, computer conferences,
telephones, fax and email have been noted (Perraton and Creed 2000).
Similarly, in being health-focused education programmes using ICT rather than being
intrinsically literacy-oriented, radio has been used in Tanzania to educate Rwandese
refugees on matters including health and sanitation and children’s issues, through
‘Radio Kwizera’, whilst in Mali, radio is reported to be the principal source of AIDS
information (Myers 1997; Perraton and Creed 2000).
A recent study of the actual and potential role of open, distance and flexible learning
in preventing and mitigating the effects of HIV/AIDS on young people in South
Africa and Mozambique concluded that whilst a certain amount has been done, with
various examples of programmes using different media and delivered to different
audiences in both countries, a more focused and incisive approach would be of great
value (Pridmore, Yates, Kuhn and Xerinda forthcoming).
Safe water programmes
Non-formal education using ICT for adults has also been used in programmes
concerned with safe water issues, largely including any literacy development or
maintenance aspect as a minor rather than a key element, as is the case with the health
improvement programmes noted. HESAWA, the Health and Sanitation through Water
Health Education Project in Tanzania, was established in 1986 and continued to be
active into the 1990s, mounting campaigns using radio, audio cassettes, flip charts and
illustrated study books as resources for study groups, under the guidance of study
group leaders. The project aimed to educate rural adults in Tanzania’s lake regions in
matters of health and sanitation relating to water usage, including pit latrine
2
Audiographics uses a combination of computer, modem and speaker phone to link participants in
different locations, using a combination of computer, modem and speaker phone, enabling conference
participants to speak and to write, draw, type and annotate shared documents among one another, on a
‘live’ and immediate basis (ie, synchronously).
106732344
Page 16 of 40
construction, well construction and protection, child care and development (Dodds
1996).
In Vietnam, the Danish development agency DANIDA, working with the Ministry of
Fisheries, in 2003 raised the possibility of using radio to teach and raise awareness of
shrimp farmers about the health and environmental issues, problems and techniques
which they face. This interest has as yet not been developed into a distance learning
programme, but the potential has been envisaged of using radio as a component of
government extension work with the farmers, to impact on their practice and
knowledge on a large scale. The potential participants are small-scale farmers, many
of whom are illiterate, who have invested their savings in converting rice paddies to
shrimp farming, which offers a potentially lucrative return but which carries serious
risks of failure as a result of shrimp mortality, resulting in financial loss, with
resultant food security crisis, along with water pollution and a detrimental effect on
human health if not managed with understanding of the ecology of the shrimps, the
use of feeds and antibiotics, and the need for and techniques of oxygenation of the
water (Personal communications, 2003, 2004).
Livelihoods improvement programmes
Linkages between literacy and livelihoods are currently a major focus. Relating these
concerns to developments in ICT takes several dimensions. In addition to the question
of whether and how ICT can be used in the service of developing literacy skills, and
the aspect of literacy which is concerned with the ability to use ICT (ie, computer
literacy and associated areas), there are correlations between levels of literacy and
general welfare connected to the ability to participate in economic activity and the
growth of a knowledge economy. This applies both on an individual level and at
societal levels and is a basic concern of the World Bank and the support it provides to
literacy and livelihoods training programmes. However, this is in the context of
support to literacy programmes comprising less than one per cent of World Bank
lending for education (Adams 2004).
At a conference organised to consider the role of distance learning and ICTs in
support of livelihoods, a range of case study papers and thematic keynote addresses
considered this theme as a major focus (Daniel 2004). The specific challenges facing
implementing such approaches effectively were explored in a range of contexts
including literacy and livelihood programmes in Sudan and Kenya (Binns 2004), and
Bangladesh (Rezwan 2004). At the same time, a report prepared for CoL contained
recommendations to set up a collaborative project using open and distance learning to
train managers in development agencies, extension workers and entrepreneurs running
telecentres and others, to support smallholder farmers and agricultural communities
(Latchem, Maru and Alluri 2004).
Telecurso 2000 in Brazil, a programme for employed youth and adults lacking in
education, used television, print, study groups and facilitators to provide learning
opportunities from primary level upwards (Edirisingha 1999).
In Bangladesh, the Grameen Telecom project uses telephone and internet facilities to
support the development of economic security of rural women with some incidental
learning benefits. Drawing on loans from the community Grameen Bank, women buy
106732344
Page 17 of 40
mobile telephones and receivers and rent them out to pay off the loan and make an
income. The availability of the telephones also enables the other users in the village to
develop their business. Similar projects using new possibilities of cellular telephones
and internet have been noted in many countries (Perraton and Creed 2000).
Mauritius College of the Air (MCA) has offered technical and vocation courses using
various media. These have included training in outboard motor maintenance for
fishermen, using video, made available by mobile video playing units. By contrast, in
Mali, a rural newspaper, Kibaru, and local radio, were used to disseminate
development information to neo-literates and to encourage them to engage in two-way
communication through readers’ letters and local radio (IEC nd).
The Commonwealth of Learning has supported distance learning programmes
designed to reduce rural poverty under a programme entitled CoL-PROTEIN (Poverty
Reduction Outcomes through Education, Innovations and Networks). The initiative
commenced support in late 2004 to non-profit organisations in Cameroon, India,
Kenya, Nigeria and Solomon Islands. The purpose of the programme is to support the
programmes which use distance learning and ICT to help build rural capacity in food
security, environment al protection, rural development, nutritional education and
micro-enterprise. Schemes include dissemination of knowledge of solar cooking in
Nigeria, awareness raising in fish processing and women’s cooperatives in India,
kitchen garden and nutrition development in Kenya, small business development for
women in Cameroon and computer training of rural computer trainers for youth in
Solomon Islands (CoL 2004).
The Gobi Women’s Project used radio, with face-to-face learning groups, information
centres and visiting teachers, to support nomadic women to develop income
livelihoods related skills along with their literacy. Of Mongolia’s 2.3 million people,
nearly half were living in sparsely populated areas, about 136,000 families following
a nomadic or semi-nomadic life (Robinson 1995, 1999).
Areas treated by the project included livestock rearing, income generation and
business skills alongside literacy. In the context of a society undergoing rapid social
and economic change (including, for the scattered nomads, a change from state-owned
to privately owned herds, a decrease in state-provided services and a reduction of both
radio broadcast and printed information produced by the state, in the transition from a
centrally planned to a free-market economy), radio was found to be the most effective
and flexible medium to promote and use for the purposes of the project, compared
with print, which was slower to produce and adjust.
The Gobi Women’s Project involved approximately 16,500 women in its pilot and full
implementation cycles, from January 1995 to December 1996, spread across 62
districts (10 in the pilot phase), supported by 620 visiting voluntary teachers. Over
2000 radios with batteries were distributed, and printed booklets were produced both
centrally and locally. The project activities themselves were not sustainable after the
close of external donor funding, but the processes of distance learning which the
project introduced fed into subsequent projects and government provision.
106732344
Page 18 of 40
INADES-formation runs correspondence courses and face-to-face training sessions in
farming for primary-school educated individuals in ten African countries (eight
francophone and two Anglophone) (Perraton 2000b).
FEPRA, a functional education programme in Pakistan, mentioned above, was an
example of a well-organised and resourced project which used a form of distance
education. The system was based on local study groups, led by facilitators who were
intensively supported and monitored by outreach workers, and used printed handouts,
flipcharts, audio-cassette tapes to structure and lead the learning, along with the
practical items which the sessions were about. The curriculum was centrally
developed, based on extensive consultation and discussion with communities which
wanted to participate as to the topics they wished to learn about. The themes of
courses included aspects of poultry keeping, basic electrical repairs, livestock, credit
and child care. Whilst the programme was not centrally a direct literacy-teaching
programme, the majority of learners had no formal education or only Quranic
education, and the lessons encouraged the development of basic literacy and
numeracy skills as part of the functional learning (Warr 1992).
In Zambia, an evaluation of the Community-based Education for Rural People
(CERP) project, which sought to use new technologies to support efforts to increase
their knowledge through developing and distributing modules to remote centres on
topics including useful aspects of agriculture and health, concluded that ICT was
helpful for distributing ideas and materials to areas which were difficult to reach by
other means, and that electronic distribution could be used to support non-formal
education programmes organised locally from satellite centres. The evaluation also
concluded, however, that low-tech methods should be pursued in order to increase and
extend the value of the programme’s nonformal education activities, rather than
placing reliance on more sophisticated telecommunications-based technology, since
basic requirements such as power, buildings and security for equipment would be
likely not to materialise in many locations, effectively excluding many of population
who were most in need (Pye and Stephenson 2003).
Programmes in other areas
Myers, in a recent doctoral thesis on educational and developmental radio for women,
identifies radio as having been widely used for nonformal adult basic education to
provide equivalent education to primary schooling (literacy, oral expression,
numeracy and problem solving) and life-skills programmes (eg, basic health,
nutrition, family planning, agriculture and vocational skills). Myers distinguishes
three main categories of radio programmes in this context: interactive radio
instruction (IRI), curriculum-based distance education and group-learning or
radiophonic schools. (Myers 2004).
Myers’ overview of experience in this field argues that IRI has limited application for
adult basic education, relying on formal school-like study centre environments and
being more suited to adults in urban areas, and who have considerable prior
experience of learning and motivation to continue, as distinct from widely spread rural
adult learners who lack any schooling experience and who are remote from any
established study centre. Similarly, although citing exceptions such as the women’s
Gobi Desert literacy programme (Robinson 1995, 1999), Myers sees curriculum-
106732344
Page 19 of 40
based radio as most applicable to secondary or tertiary level learning, rather than
initial or continuing literacy. Where it is used for basic education, the commitment of
human support to learners is costly and labour-intensive. The main use of radio for
nonformal adult basic education in Myers’ analysis is through organised study groups.
In Nigeria, the National Commission for Nomadic Education (NCNE) has used radio
to disseminate animal health and development-related messages to nomadic
pastoralists and migrant fishing communities (Umar and Tahir 1998). NCNE has also
engaged in the preliminary stages of developing an IRI programme for nomadic
primary schools, to teach children English, mathematics and integrated social studies
and life skills. At the time of writing, this is yet to be fully developed and to
commence implementation. The model and materials from OLSET in South Africa
are expected to be used in the first instance (various personal communications, 20025).
One indirect support to literacy learning where distance learning has a very significant
history and future role is in teacher training. Particularly in Africa, inservice teacher
training is among the most common and long established applications of distance
learning. Most of the programmes have utilised a combination of printed materials
and face-to-face support, often accompanied by correspondence assignments and
sometimes also by radio, or, less commonly, cassette or television. The experience in
this field is well documented, including the collected experience with cost analyses
and case studies contained in an authoratative book on the subject (Perraton 1993).
The role of community resource centres
Community resource centres (CRCs) can serve various functions in promoting
literacy, both involving ICT or distance learning and otherwise. Roles of CRCs can
include providing libraries, training and supporting literacy workers, distributing
literacy materials, enabling learner-generated materials to be developed and produced
by literacy and post-literacy learners and shared with peers who use the same CRC,
housing telecommunications facilities (including radio, television and internet) and
acting as key focal points for the management of literacy and development
programmes as well as venues and channels for the teaching and learning processes
themselves.
Kothmale Internet Community Radio project in Sri Lanka uses a combination of radio
and internet to provide an interactive forum between participants who listen by radio
and the broadcasters who have access to the internet as an information resource.
Broadcasters respond to requests for information, which listeners write or call in,
searching for it on the internet and broadcasting it back to the audience. The radio
station serves as a community resource centre, with free internet access, a library with
a database, downloaded literature and other resources (UNESCO 2005).
Similarly, Dodds (2001) describes University of Namibia’s ‘Information and Learning
Resource Centre proposed programme to support regional learning resource centres,
channelling materials and information to assist with education, health and education
development. In this instance, the initiative was seen in terms of future potential, and
also challenges, rather than secured solutions or proven results.
106732344
Page 20 of 40
As noted already, the extent to which learners have access to facilities and to the
technologies involved is a determinant of the usefulness of ICT, which applies to
CRCs as well as to ICT accessed elsewhere. Myers (2004) notes, for example, that
active participation in radio clubs and centres is limited to those relatively few who
can attend the meetings in centralised locations. Although CRCs may be widely
distributed, they may nevertheless remain far from the individual potential learner,
particularly in rural areas.
One way of addressing the limitations arising from having CRCs in fixed locations
which are remote from many learners who are widely dispersed is to render the CRC
itself mobile. In Bangladesh, mobile CRCs are provided on boats, through the Mobile
Internet Educational Unit on Boats project, with literacy-learning facilities for out of
school girls and women, along with micro-enterprise development support, screenings
of non-formal education programmes, distance learning for farmers using mobile
telephones, multimedia displays, email, internet-accessed information on agricultural
and environmental issues, and information on matters such as the prices of farm
inputs and commodity prices in different markets. Improvements are reported in
literacy rates as well as in health, girls’ school enrolment, and use and conservation of
water systems (CoL 2005, Rezwan 2004).
Overall, from the extensive documented experience of use of CRCs and telecentres,
particularly as regards Latin America and Africa, examples of the significant possible
benefits to be gained from a centres-based strategy exist. Nevertheless, major issues
of cost, access and sustainability remain and, specifically in terms of addressing
literacy learning on a mass scale as an approach to addressing EFA, the full potential
of CRCs using ICT remains to be established (Perraton and Creed 2000).
One study suggests that rural women find telecentres attractive in principle but not
always accessible for them personally, partly due to the necessities of their livelihood
and lifestyle (Schreiner 1998). A collection of case studies of telecentres around the
world, meanwhile, provides extensive evidence of telecentres being a significant
feature of programmes in a range of countries, using ICTs to facilitate access to
education, information, training and telemedicine (Latchem and Walker 2001). As
well as acting as receiving centres for centrally produced learning materials, in some
cases telecentres serve as production centres for materials. Telecentres are resourced
and run by public and private sectors, business, government, communities and NGOs.
Other studies documenting and reviewing learning resource centres of various kinds,
utilising a range of media and with varying purposes and organisational and
infrastructural bases, include a discussion of multipurpose community telecentres
(Dupont 2002), a description of telecentres in Mali (Diallo and Engvall 2000) and a
detailed review of experience of telecentres in Africa produced by the Canadian
organisation the International Development Research Centre, IDRC, including a
detailed bibliography of research, evaluations and case studies in support of the
strategy of community resource centres (Etta and Parvyn-Wamahiu 2003).
A review of telecentres in Latin America (Gomez et al 1999), which cautions about
‘the euphoria surrounding ICTs and development’, urging that ‘any initiative
regarding communication research in Latin America should build on the long and rich
history of community media (eg radio and video) found in the region’.
106732344
Page 21 of 40
Other selective reviews of telecentres for rural development include a discussion on
access to ICTs in rural areas in Africa (Jensen 2000), a study of investment
opportunities and design recommendations for telecentres in Latin America and the
Caribbean (Proenza et al 2001) and a review and outline guidelines on using
telecentres in support of distance education (Latchem 2001) for CoL. All of these
essentially share a position that telecentres and their use as nodes for accessing
internet and other communications infrastructure and services are an important
component in expanding access to and improving the quality of education and
development opportunities in remote areas. However, a considerable proportion of the
argument appears to be based on conviction that the technological solution is valid,
and rhetoric to support this belief, rather than clear evidence of the value and impact
of the strategy.
A contrasting view to the overwhelming consensus of these educational technology
focused organisations and consultants is taken by a leader article in The Economist
magazine (Economist 12th March 2005), which argues that investing in telecentres is a
distraction, and that the individual’s desire to use mobile phone is more significant for
development than provision of fixed infrastructure such as community resource
centres. The article argues that (aside from its philosophical or ideological position,
which is strongly aligned in favour of a neo-liberal approach to market forces)
investing in telecentres is ineffective because cost, poor electricity supply, corruption,
bureaucracy, illiteracy and inaccessibility all render the model inappropriate for the
majority of rural poor, and providing computers is a misguided top-down solution
contrasted with promoting the bottom-up demand for mobile phones, which is more
closely aligned to people’s preferences. The article’s end point is that governments
should open their telecommunications markets to competition and let free-market
competition and supply and demand shape the uptake. This, the article argues, would
close the digital divide more effectively than investing in telecentres.
Although many people and organisations involved in development would take issue
with the philosophical position of the Economist article, and disagree with its
premises, nevertheless to some extent much of the literature on telecentres and
community resource centres does imply a technicist approach which focuses on
supply, infrastructure and creating and documenting projects, rather than focusing on
the users or learners and starting from their needs, wishes and possibilities. One
example which might be construed in this way is a report prepared for CoL on the use
of information and communications technology in learning and distance education in
South Africa, Ghana, Mozambique, Fiji, Trinidad and Tobago and Canada (Intelecon
2000).
An opposing and more optimistic and idealistic view, which sees telecentres as
helping to bridge the digital divide and as an empowering force, is expressed in an
online discussion forum of ‘Civil society’s “Declaration of principles and challenges
to WSIS” ’, which sees achieving universal access to and participation in ICT as a
universal right: ‘We are committed to building information and communication
societies which are people-centred, inclusive and equitable. Societies in which
everyone can freely create, access, utilise and share and disseminate information and
knowledge, so that individuals, communities and peoples are empowered to improve
their quality of life and to achieve their full potential.’ (Cameron 2004; WISIS 2003).
106732344
Page 22 of 40
Part 3: ICT and distance learning for training literacy workers3
This section considers ICT as a medium for training literacy workers: does ICT,
including through distance learning, play a significant role in providing training
opportunities for people working in youth and adult literacy? What is the available
evidence on the benefits and disadvantages of using ICT and distance learning for this
purpose?
Evidence on the benefits of ICT and distance learning
The potential for use of distance learning and ICT for training adult educators
working in literacy and nonformal education has been variously explored, including in
a collection of papers and country studies (Singh and McKay 2004).
However, the overriding picture emerging from the conference papers which comprise
this collection, is that distance learning and ICT have until now been relatively little
used in the training of literacy workers. Various proposals are made to develop this
mode of training literacy workers, and some programmes are described (eg, a
University of Namibia diploma in adult education and community development).
Additionally, the benefits of networking among adult educators are variously argued.
But by and large, these are proposals for the future rather than descriptions of the
present or past experience on a significant scale. The benefits of using ICT and
distance learning for this purpose seem clear in principle; but have been little
exploited in practice.
One of the benefits of ICT for training literacy workers, assuming the infrastructure,
user access and user skills are adequate for its use, is the possibility to communicate
directly both between one centre and many distributed recipients and also (depending
on these variables and also on the technologies used) among many distributed
partners, peer to peer.
In comparison to a more traditional model of training and supporting literacy workers
on a large scale using a face-to-face cascade approach (eg, whereby the experts who
design a literacy programme train a small number of master trainers, who in turn train
a larger cadre of less expert trainers who in turn train more, lower level trainers, who
in turn train front-line facilitators), use of ICT can thus immediately reach from the
centre of expertise to the front line facilitators. This may be two-way, or, preferably,
multi-way.
The potential benefits of this are clear. Firstly, the degeneration of quality and focus
which is a weakness of cascades as an approach for diffusion is avoided: the
participant receives training directly from source, undiluted and uncorrupted.
Secondly, it can allow for a more participatory and less knowledge-transfer model of
training to be engaged in. This is important, since whilst the trainer-trainers at higher
3
This section benefited from discussion with Alan Rogers and others of a summary of his paper on the
theme of training of literacy instructors, which was under preparation for the GMR.
106732344
Page 23 of 40
levels of a cascade may be more proficient in training than those lower down it, they
may be less proficient or experienced as on-the-ground literacy facilitators.
The more participatory the approach used in training, therefore, the more it draws on
and recognises the expertise and practice of the front-line literacy workers, and the
better they can benefit by incorporating the training into their practice, shaping it to
their needs as they contribute to its processes and outcomes. They can contribute to
the training process, supporting one another within their local group and, in some
cases, peers in other groups with whom they are linked through ICT. As literacy
facilitation (ie, the development of the literacy skills of the illiterate or neo-literate
learners) itself seeks to be a participatory process (eg, the Reflect approach and
related models), so the use of participatory training of facilitators fits the
philosophical and pedagogical assumptions of what literacy facilitators are expected
to be engaged in better than do top-down models of training. This, however, also
relates to a weakness of the use of distance learning for this purpose, which will be
discussed below.
Additionally, training literacy workers using face-to-face cascades is labour intensive
and is difficult in practice to sustain beyond an initial and, in the longer term,
insufficient training. For continuing training and support, and for such continuation to
be at the best standard which is available within the programme structure, distance
learning offers the possibility for a continuing programme throughout the duration of
the literacy programme. The training – whether by radio, television, printed materials,
telephone or email discussion, mobile telephone texting or some combination of these
– may be organised through local centres which act as focal points for face-to-face
peer support, distribution of materials, access to the relevant technology, feedback
into the system and monitoring and formative evaluation of programme activities.
As with other uses of distance learning, the most effective application is likely to be
as part of a blended approach, whereby distance learning and face-to-face meetings
are used in judicious combination in a continuing process. The continuity of the
training over an extended period on the job, as opposed to a brief, initial training
event, and the participatory nature of a well-designed blended programme, can well
exploit the benefits of distance/blended learning, as the literacy workers reflect on,
discuss and apply to their practical work what they gain through their training. This is
especially advantageous in as much as it enables a solution to be found to the problem
of the ineffectiveness of short initial training which then has little feed-in to the
practice of the literacy workers.
Resources such as training manuals which have wide application and may be adapted
for use locally are available on websites and can be used by literacy programmes and
through their central planning unit or more directly by literacy workers workers.
These and other resources downloaded and printed may then be supported with
locally specific training. This provides the opportunity to exploit high quality and up
to date resource materials tried and tested internationally, combined with locally
specific training, whether through face-to-face training, at a distance or a combination
of the two. However, there is the argument that these represent top-down provision
rather than demand-led and locally relevant material, and there is also the risk of
inappropriate or low quality material being accessed and adopted rather than material
which would be useful.
106732344
Page 24 of 40
The Literacy and Mass Communication Media project in which Cuba collaborated
with Haiti used radio (and where radio was not accessible, audio cassettes) along with
printed manuals for training of more than 10,000 literacy monitors as well as using
these media for direct literacy instruction, as mentioned earlier (UNESCO 2002a).
This case illustrates both the potential of radio and the use of the same media
combinations for training of trainers as for the literacy teaching itself.
As with other fields of education, it is helpful in literacy teaching programmes if the
mode of training or professional development of the instructors or teachers is such
that the trainee learns through participating in the same way as the eventual learners
will be participating, thus internalising and reflecting on the process from the learner’s
point of view. An example of where this identity between training and susequent
teaching methods was used effectively is FEPRA (Warr 1992).
Evidence on the disadvantages of ICT and distance learning
As mentioned above, there is also a disadvantage in distance learning as regards its
application for training of literacy workers which relates to the widely-held intent to
maximise the participatory nature of much literacy learning. Traditional distance
learning has been called into question in recent years as being too much a process of
knowledge transfer, and not amenable to constructivist approaches to learning. By
preparing course materials with a set curriculum, content and activities, and then
distributing these to as wide an audience as possible (for maximum impact and for
economies of scale), there is an inherent risk of mismatching the teaching supplied –
one-size-fits-all – and the learning required, which may both evolve within one
individual learner or learning group and also differ among different learners within a
group and among different groups of learners.
Whilst this is true of all distance learning, it is particularly an issue in connection with
using distance learning for literacy, in the light of the concept of ‘literacies’ which
recognises multiple uses and kinds of literacy, seeing literacy as a social construct
rather than simply a technical skill of decoding and encoding symbols. Additionally,
questions of appropriateness arise considering issues of which language, of possibly
multiple languages in use by any one community member and by the community as a
whole, should be invoked in the training programme and the literacy development
model it exemplifies. Thus if the model of training is to embody and itself be part of
the training curriculum – ie, by engaging the trainee in the kind of learning processes
which he in turn will use in his facilitation of literacy learners’ learning – having a set
and standardised training package developed and distributed from a remote expert
source without regard or tailoring to the participant’s particular interests, context,
characteristics and needs, is arguably inappropriate, however well produced and
designed the materials.
Even aside from the debate about how far the social approach to literacy/literacies is
adopted as opposed to the more basic traditional sense of literacy, distance learning
has limitations for training literacy workers. One such limitation is if it relies on
technologies which are not widely available to the literacy workers or to the learners
they will be supporting. For example, using videos or web-based resources to
demonstrate literacy class techniques would be inappropriate in many situations
106732344
Page 25 of 40
where literacy workers will not have access to the technology to watch the videos or
access the online material themselves, far less to use these with the literacy learners.
Distance learning has also formed a part of programmes which qualify people
formally in education at higher levels – eg in B.Ed, MA and diploma programmes.
However, as with face-to-face programmes addressing the same levels of
qualification, the focus tends to be more academic than practical and the students,
while they may indeed currently or in future work in adult education, will tend to be
in management or programme coordination roles rather than actively engaged in
training literacy trainers or directly instructing literacy learners. Indeed, it has been
observed that distance learning may be more relevant to developing the knowledge
and awareness of managers and organisers of learning programmes than it is to
directly training the trainers themselves, whether in traditional correspondence models
or more recent networked communication models.
At whatever level and for whatever focus, one concern with distance learning is its
relatively high drop-out rates. This would apply in training literacy workers as much
as in any other use. However, this may be minimised by ensuring the training is as
directly relevant and accessible the trainee or other learner as possible. Also, it should
be noted that drop out from conventionally offered training programmes may also
occur.
Part 4: The potential for the use of ICT and distance learning
This section focuses on the future: where does the greatest potential lie for the use of
ICT and for distance learning in extending and improving literacy?
There is considerable expectation and interest in the application of ICT and distance
learning as means of addressing literacy learning challenges on a large scale. CoL has
a stated commitment to seeking to impact positively on literacy and livelihoods
through supporting the development of distance learning and ICT for these purposes,
whilst other agencies such as DFID (in particular through its IMFUNDO programme)
and CIDA have demonstrated similar aspirations.
However, many distance ICT-based distance learning projects have been seen not to
be sustainable or have not been expanded to large scale after initial developmental
piloting because they have lacked adequate government support. Thus, thought they
may have been effective projects, they have died out. Additionally, efforts to develop
adult literacy have been perceived as expensive and less vital than focusing resources
on universal primary education (UPE) in funding and policy decision-making (Hornik
1988, cited in Perraton and Creed 2000).
A decade ago, a review of the use of technology in adult literacy programmes in the
United States described a wholesale adoption of computer technology for this purpose
(as well as the continued use of audio and videotapes), but also the prevalence of
computers seeming to outstrip the educational purposes to which teacher and learners
found themselves able to put them (Turner 1993). Whilst times, technology and
expectations have moved on in the intervening years, the underlying observation that
educational benefits lag behind and do not necessarily materialise to match the
106732344
Page 26 of 40
technically driven spread of computer infrastructure would appear to remain valid
today.
Nevertheless, at a similar date, looking at the scale of the challenge in meeting basic
education needs in the developing world, including 30 million street children and
‘countless adults who are illiterate or semi-literate’, the necessity to use some form of
open or distance learning approaches were clearly seen by Michael Young, arguing
that ‘if eventually there is a dual mode for basic education it could be because
ordinary schools join distance teaching not the other way round’ (Young 1992).
Looking ahead more recently, a literature review of ODL policy and practice in the
Sub-Saharan Africa context cites expectations of immense educational potential for
the internet, in terms of its ability to link remote and hitherto isolated communities,
enabling them to revolutionise their access to learning resources and services, and its
ability to bring together and integrate with other media such as print, radio and
television, yet recognises that telecommunications infrastructure, staff competences
and policies on how to integrate the use of ICT in education are severely lacking (CoL
2002).
If these limitations are seen as major obstacles even when considering higher level
education (as this CoL study, carried out for the Association for the Development of
Education in Africa, largely is), and when coming from the optimistic perspectives of
advocates of ICT and ODL as technical solutions to learning needs, the picture when
considering adult basic literacy and when seen from the perspective of sceptics of
such technically-driven fixes, is considerably bleaker. Other than face-to-face contact,
print and radio remain overwhelmingly the most used media for education, and mass
access to and use of internet technologies by adult literacy learners remain far from
any realistic projection in poorer parts of the world, even if relevant and effective
basic literacy learning purposes can be devised and adopted to exploit the technical
potential.
However, in contexts where access to new information and communications
technologies is growing significantly in other realms of people’s lives, the potential
for use of such technologies to support literacy learning is very great. As the Reflect
technology projects illustrate, there is a cycle of mutually reinforcing benefit between
learners’ wanting to learn how to use ICT for other purposes (largely to do with
livelihoods and accessing information of use to them), on the one hand, and their
learning through pursuing this purpose, on the other hand, not only to use the
technology in question but also literacy skills which have wider application.
Against these benefits, ICT may increase rather than decrease the inequalities and
divisions within a community and between rich and poor countries. Power rests with
those on the favoured side of the digital divide, the user of the computer or the
telephone controlling access to and interpretation of information. At worst, therefore,
ICT can increase top-down, one-size-fits-all provision of education and other services
and pose a threat to cultural diversity. Fifty per cent of all internet users live in
America, and minority languages are little represented in documents available on the
world wide web (Beardon 2005).
106732344
Page 27 of 40
At best, the democratising potential of ICT, when communities have control of how
they access and use the technology, is an empowering process, individually and
socially, including and reaching far beyond literacy learning, in keeping with the
underlying principles of Reflect and participatory development.
Considering definitions of literacy and the relationships between technology and
literacy, the presence of technology in aspects of the individual’s life other than those
aspects overtly concerned with his learning has a direct bearing both on the
motivation and necessity for an individual, and for his community in general, to be
literate, and also on what it means to be literate. As Barton analyses (Barton 1994),
the concept of literacy has been broadened into meaning understanding an area of
knowledge or feeling ‘confident in the literacy practices one participates in’, including
use of computers and interpreting television programmes. Among these interrelationships among technology and literacy, the extent to which a person lives in an
environment where ICT is widely in use has a correlation with the extent to which he
is likely to benefit from, and to feel he will benefit from, being competent in the use
of these technologies.
Additionally, as many a parent has discovered, children who are exposed to
technologies such as video players, computers and mobile phones, are able to learn
from the items they handle, directly and through ‘discovery’, without recourse to
written language. Such acquisition of skills simply by having access to the equipment
and perceiving the possibility of putting it to use to achieve desirable ends (eg,
watching a cartoon, drawing a picture, playing a game, talking with a grandmother),
provides a forceful support for learning in the immediate present, and, through the
competence and confidence gained, in the longer term. Clearly, the extent to which
this effect occurs depends upon the social rules in force about handling the
technology. In some instances, for example, women find it harder to control the use of
the family radio or television set than do the males in their household, and so simply
the existence of ICT in a domestic setting is not sufficient to render it empowering
(Beardon 2005).
The extent to which consideration of literacy has diverged into literacies, with diverse
meanings of the term, including the competence to use ICT, bears on the relative
value which policies and programmes place on developing a ‘literate’ population and
on the value people place on being able to operate in various modes. Additionally,
issues of in which language or languages it is important to be literate, in settings
where several languages may be used for different purposes and at different levels
within the family, local, national and international domains, were important before
consideration of ICT significantly entered the arena. Now that this has changed, these
issues once again come to the fore. Whilst the growth of ICT brings possibilities it
also brings added complications in these regards (Street 2001, Barton, Hamilton and
Ivanic 2000).
Extending literacy
Distance learning and ICT offer a great deal of potential for extending the reach of
literacy development programmes in three major ways. Firstly, there is the possibility
of enabling participation by literacy learners who are beyond the range of
programmes which depend on physical presence at a literacy-teaching centre, by
106732344
Page 28 of 40
making the learning activities and materials available to them where the learners are.
Secondly, resources, support services and possibly to some extent direct instruction of
literacy learners, may be distributed more effectively and widely through resource
centres, which then act as the focal points for literacy learning in their vicinity.
Thirdly, either of these first two possibilities may be applied to developing the skills
and knowledge of literacy instructors – ie, for training of trainers.
As access to diverse and modern ICT increases through the contemporary changes in
the wider technological and social contexts in this direction, and as the usability and
affordability of ICT improve as a corollary to these changes, ICT can be expected to
become increasingly central to literacy learning undertakings as in other aspects of
life and societies.
Mobile communities such as nomadic herders in Africa and travellers in Europe, who
have to a great extent not participated in literacy learning and thus in other education
which builds from a basis of literacy, and who nevertheless are open to adoption and
assimilation into their lifestyles of innovations they perceive as practically and
economically useful, will increasingly be interested and likely to use ICT, in
particular the most portable and widely attractive medium, mobile telephones, to
communicate. For example, with practical information such as rainfall and cattle
movements being tracked by satellite and GPS technologies, and market prices of
goods and commodities in different locations being comparable by telephone, herders
will find accessing such information of direct benefit. As such, they will have an
incentive to adopt the technology and to be competent in its use.
Literacy learning can be built from this desire to use the technology and by
identifying from users the kind of literacy they would value and how this can be
developed through and for their use of mobile telephone. One component of this is the
usefulness and relative cheapness of text information through mobile telephony, and
the opportunities for developing this which are likely increasingly to become available
in the coming years.
Improving literacy
For people already engaged in literacy learning, as distinct from efforts to reach those
hitherto excluded from it, ICT and distance learning have very great potential to
contribute to improving their literacy. This can most simply be in the form of
supporting conventional literacy programmes with additional and self-accessed
learning materials and activities. These may be, depending on the context, in the form
of printed lessons and resources, or on websites, CD-ROMs or DVDs, video or audio
tapes (the latter especially in conjunction with printed material, to form ‘audio-vision’
packages), by radio, television, newspaper, mobile or landline telephone, fax,
computer conferencing, email, videoconferencing or variations and combinations of
these.
In each case, again depending on the context, these technologies may be used by a
learner at a learning resource centre, at home, at a place of work or at another place of
access (such as a library); and within a learning group, with or without a facilitator
present, or in communication with other learners or with a facilitator remotely, or by
the learner individually. With some technologies, such as mobile telephones, there is
106732344
Page 29 of 40
the possibility for peer-to-peer, not just teacher-to-learner, distributed learning,
through essentially informal and ad hoc communications on matters of shared interest.
To describe this kind of learning, making use of current technological developments,
Roy Williams has proposed the term ‘ante-formal learning’ in preference to the term
‘non-formal education’.
The current emergence of the medium of web-logs, or ‘blogs’, being personal web
pages onto which the author or ‘blogger’ (ie, the website owner) places, based on his
own editorial judgement, and in a continuous process, his own diary of ideas and
collections of references to websites or other source of information which are of
interest to him or support or illustrate his arguments, or simply items he likes or
stories he has found amusing. Depending on the individual author, a blog may
contain pieces of his own work in progress, comments on other people’s ideas or
communications, an esoteric journalistic commentary on a specific field of interest or
the current general news, and may include both text and photographs.
Very often, a blog appears to be conceived as a mode of individual expression by the
blogger. In this way, Williams considers blogs, along with text messages sent among
individuals through mobile phones, as offering new possibilities for learning which
are different from and in some ways more democratic than older models of nonformal
education and, particularly, than older and more formal models of distance learning.
This applies both to literacy and where literacy supports other aspects of basic
education such as in livelihoods and health, and has correspondences with the
development of participatory, learner-centred approaches and learner-generated
materials (Williams forthcoming).
Such uses of ICT are, however, relatively rare and small scale, and in reality the most
significant uses of distance learning and ICT in support of literacy learning in terms of
engaging large numbers of learners, at least in poorer countries, may be expected to
remain those media which rely less on ownership of or access to and use of
sophisticated electrical equipment by learners. Thus, for individual adult and youth
literacy learners, the use of print, in some cases supported by reception of television
or radio broadcasts, in conjunction with face-to-face study circles and literacy
facilitators, is likely to remain the most common form of distance learning and ICT
use.
In richer industrialised countries, the use of more recent forms of ICT can be expected
to continue to be more prevalent. This is a result of a combination of factors: cost,
infrastructure, human resource capacity to develop materials and to support courses,
greater ambient presence of ICT in other aspects of daily life and levels and greater
familiarity with and expectations to use ICT on the part of learners. In contrast,
however, the converse situation will apply for the bulk of learners in the developing
world. Rates of access to technology, whether radio, television, telephone or
computer, and electricity consumption in terms of kilowatt-hours per capita, are
starkly opposed between developed countries and less developed countries. Citing
1997 UNDP figures, Spronk points to electricity consumption per capita of the leastdeveloped countries as approximately one per cent of that in developed countries, and
for all developing countries taken together as approximately ten per cent of developed
countries (Spronk 2001).
106732344
Page 30 of 40
Additionally, although in the past few years numbers of telephones and of internet
users have increased dramatically around the world (thus superseding, for example,
the 1999 Worldwatch Institute figure Spronk cites of African internet connections
being one to 4,000 people, as against Australia’s one to four), the proportions of poor
rural people without access to these media remain overwhelming. As Spronk also
cites from 1999 UNDP conclusions, the digital divide runs through societies, dividing
the rich from the poor, urban from rural, men from women and young from old, and
internet access embraces only the tip of each society (Spronk 2001).
Though the financial and access figures change, and in some cases do so rapidly (as in
the growth of access to mobile phones), the overall picture of inclusion and exclusion
does not do so to a proportionate degree, and whilst the costs of ICT change, the basic
question remains for planners of literacy development programmes, as to whether it is
really worth investing a given amount of money in computers and related
communications infrastructure which a relatively few people will be able to use at
centres as opposed to using the same amount of money to print learning materials in
bulk and support literacy-learning group facilitators, and perhaps to broadcast to very
large and scattered populations. In general, for direct teaching in the terms, computers
do not present a convincing option.
The possible uses of ICT in improving literacy include a range of dimensions, then. It
is likely that each of these will feature in future developments, the underlying
purposes and principles remaining much as they have been hitherto even as the details
of the technologies in use change.
ICT can be used to motivate possible participants and to raise the profile of literacy
programmes, as the Ghana Functional Literacy Programme used radio (Dodds 1996;
CoL 2002). Radio and television as mass media can be used, in an indirect and
supporting role, to encourage engagement in activities which maintain literacy, such
as reading newspapers and joining and using libraries. More directly, ICT can provide
learning materials and provide functional purposes in literacy learning, such as
accessing information and communicating through direct online and telephonic
communications and through newspapers, and distributing and exchanging materials
among learner resource centres or directly to individual learners.
Developments of the models and uses of interactive radio instruction (IRI) can be
foreseen, the existing experiences being adapted for a widening range of learners,
both adults and children. Perhaps more significantly overall will be the growth of
community radio, made possible by increasing availability of low-cost, consumeruseable radio production and broadcasting technologies, the ability to compile, buy
and exchange audio material through the internet and the widespread privatisation and
deregulation of broadcasting. Supported by the parallel growth in access to mobile
telephony and internet among potential audiences, which enables greater interaction
between broadcasters and their listeners, these developments may be exploited by
groups with educational and social development agendas to the benefit of literacy and
broader basic education, health and social improvement ends.
ICT and distance learning have particularly important potential in their continued use
to support teachers and instructors, including dedicated literacy instructors and,
numerically more importantly, school teachers who may also work as adult literacy
106732344
Page 31 of 40
instructors, to enable them to perform better as school teachers and adult educators.
There are very many teachers, in contexts throughout the world, who can be expected
to benefit from inservice training, skills development and knowledge updating. The
impact on literacy is thus potentially of major significance. ODL has a long and
extensive track record in teacher training; it has been shown to work well when
adequately organised and resourced, and it involves an often ‘captive audience’ who
can be identified, reached, managed and supported within existing organisational
structures and who are a relatively stable and committed population.
Additionally, whilst national education budgets are typically less favourable to adult
literacy than to primary education, and can be expected to remain so, some of the
professional development and support to teachers who may serve as adult literacy
instructors as a supplementary role to their job as teachers of children in formal
schooling may be included under budget headings of primary education and teacher
training and in this way be more likely to be resourced.
However, in terms of the potential for ICT to address in a major way the literacy
learning challenges facing the world on a large scale, the issue of access to ICT
remains a huge obstacle. Even though internet access and mobile phone use have been
increasing rapidly in recent years, for very many poor people these remain remote
from their reality. Behind the enthusiasm of reviews of growing internet and
telecommunications connectivity in the developing world, and despite ICT-dedicated
programmes and projects, most illiterate people have no prospect of learning through
these means. Access, particularly to the internet, remains an elite luxury in much of
the world, and ICT infrastructure the plaything of the rich (Balancing Act 2005;
Jensen 2001; IMFUNDO 2004; UNESCO 1997; UNESCO 2000a; UNESCO 2000b;
UNESCO 2002b; UNESCO 2004).
Summary of conclusions
Distance learning and ICT have and can have an important role to play in promoting
literacy. This includes direct supply to learners of learning resources and opportunities
for interaction and practice; production and sharing of learner-generated materials
among groups; stimulation, awareness-raising and motivation; support and training of
literacy workers; facilitating distribution of materials and information to resource
centres; and gathering feedback from those centres and individual learners regarding
the materials and programmes on offer.
Distance learning and ICT are most often and most likely to be used as part of wider
programmes which include conventional face-to-face contact as an integral part of
their design. This may most fruitfully be in a carefully ‘blended’ programme wherein
distance and contact components are closely integrated and complementary, rather
than as separate alternative or supplementary elements.
Access to technology is very uneven and constrains its use in many contexts. For
example, whilst mobile telephone access has spread very greatly, outstripping use of
landlines in substantial parts of the world and being far more prevalent and
penetrative among urban and rural populations than use of internet-connected
106732344
Page 32 of 40
computers, nevertheless still it is not the norm for the great majority of potential
literacy learners, who have access to none of these technologies.
Telecommunications infrastructure and usage have indeed leapt forward in Africa and
elsewhere, with mobile telephones often leapfrogging landlines to become the
telecommunication medium of choice, and text messaging has rapidly become a
popular mode of relatively inexpensive communication, thus opening possibilities for
relatively cheap, mass-distribution of short text messages to learners and for
communication among learners and from learners to distant instructors and
programme organisers. However, this does not equate to a likely major impact on
mass education, since even ‘cheap’ handsets and airtime are out of reach of very many
non-literate people as well as being beyond the scope of literacy programmes to
provide them for all their participants.
Technological change in infrastructure, costs and access continue to move apace,
therefore, but the rhetoric of the telecommunications industry and interested parties is
not matched by the reality of the literacy learner’s likely experience.
Choices of the most useful and effective media to use are as dependent upon issues of
cost, access and control as they are on the theoretical educational values of the
respective media. Print remains the most far-reaching medium for literacy, in view of
its relative affordability for development, production and reception and its
accessibility to learners in resource-poor contexts, in contrast to electronic media
which require relatively costly and skilled production and depend on learners having
ready access to costly and possibly remotely located equipment and infrastructure.
Radio has continuing potential for use in literacy development. Locally produced
interactive radio instruction and the use of community radio for locally-specific
programme support can be useful especially for audiences and in environments where
potential literacy learners are scattered, separated by distance or terrain, or mobile,
such as nomads. In such circumstances, radio can both provide administrative support
and also form part of the curriculum and learning processes, including where possible
two-way engagement among learners and programme providers.
Although not accessible to much of the world’s population, television does reach very
large audiences in many countries (such as Brazil and Egypt) and its use in such cases
as a main distance channel for promoting literacy, which has been recognised in the
past, remains valid for the foreseeable future.
Community resource centres are useful as focal points, although they have their
drawbacks for literacy programmes. They enable programme providers to manage
their literacy programmes at a local level, to build capacity of local resource people,
organise training of trainers sessions, distribute and store materials, locate and support
equipment and communications infrastructure (such as telephones, televisions, videoplayers, cassette players, computers, radios and internet terminals), and gain feedback
and information on the learners, their progress, views, needs and wishes. Centres also
provide a psychological, social, political and physical focus for community sharing of
responsibility and participation in literacy learning and related development activities.
106732344
Page 33 of 40
However, community resource centres also have the potential to confuse the learning
process with the provision of physical infrastructure, and to encourage a supply-side,
technicist-driven view of literacy learning, as opposed to a demand-led process based
on the learners’ experiences and constructions of agendas and curricula. Also, there is
arguably a danger of investment of funds and attention into static, fixed facilities
whilst potential learners may themselves be mobile, remote and, in some cases,
already adopting mobile telephone technology to support their life patterns and
livelihoods (a position taken up in a leader article in The Economist, March 12 2005).
This scenario in itself challenges the kinds and purposes of literacy learning which
CRCs invest in and, it has been argued by free-market advocates, demands greater
emphasis at policy level on deregulating and making more affordable mobile
telephony which people will themselves take up if they can, rather than investing in
provision of fixed facilities. Counter-arguments to this position are that such
expectations take no account of the social, learning and organisational benefits to
learners of congregating at a recognised, supported and well-resourced CRC; that in
reality very many people remain excluded from mobile telephone use through barriers
of cost, skills, ownership, electricity supply (for charging batteries) or network
coverage; and that the kind of literacy learning available through reading and writing
text messages on a mobile telephone, whilst potentially useful, is extremely limited.
Distance learning and ICT are valuable for training and supporting literacy instructors
and facilitators. This is true because rather than (as is frequently the case) instructors
receiving a brief initial training and then in effect being expected to carry on and
operate on their own without further significant development of their skills or
understanding of their role or of literacy learning, by using ICT and distance learning,
such instructors can engage in continuing professional development as literacy
workers as they proceed in their roles and gain experience.
However, to the extent that the methods through which a person undertakes his own
training and learning directly translates into how he proceeds to train and teach others,
a limitation of distance learning and ICT in this context is that in most cases the
facilitator will be using other means to conduct the literacy courses in which he plays
the role of instructor; thus ICT and distance learning do not, in this case, provide an
experiential training or a model which the instructor can then apply with the learners
he is supporting.
Distance learning and ICT are set to continue to impact and develop possibilities for
literacy learning, directly and indirectly. Their use also affects the kinds of literacy
that learners will need to acquire. The more traditional model of literacy learning,
based on learning groups using printed primers along with a facilitator and perhaps
audio or video material, and more recently the approaches of Reflect circles
incorporating literacy to some extent into their activities and development of learnergenerated materials, are likely to remain predominantly in evidence for the
foreseeable future.
106732344
Page 34 of 40
References
Adams, A. V. 2004. ‘Meeting the literacy and livelihoods agenda in Sub-Saharan
Africa.’ Paper at literacy and livelihoods experts meeting, Vancouver,
November 2004.
Anderson, J. 1991. Technology and adult literacy. London and New York, Routledge
Balancing Act, 2005. Balancing Act news update – African internet developments
(downloadable from http://www.balancingact-africa.com/)
Barton, D. 1994. Literacy: an introduction to the ecology of written language. Oxford
(UK) and Cambridge (Massachusetts)
Barton, R., M. Hamilton and R. Ivanic, 2000. Situated literacies: reading and writing
in context. London and New York, Routledge.
Beardon, H. et al. 2005a. ICT for development: empowerment or exploitation?
Learning from the Reflect ICTs project. London, ActionAid.
Beardon, H. 2005b. ‘Information communication technologies: a force for
empowerment?’ in Education Action, Issue 19, January 2005. London,
ActionAid UK.
Binns, F. 2004. ‘Approaches to the challenges of literacy and livelihoods in Africa.’
Paper at literacy and livelihoods experts meeting, Vancouver, November 2004.
(downloadable from
www.col.org/programmes/conferences/literacyandlivelihoods.htm/) .
Botha, W. 1993. The role of the media in education: a discussion document.’
EduSource 93/01. Johannesburg, EduSource.
Bradley, J. (ed.) 2003. The open classroom: distance learning in and out of schools.
London and Sterling, Kogan Page
Burge, E. J. and M. Haughey (eds.) 2001. Using learning technologies: international
perspectives on practice. London and New York, RoutledgeFalmer
Cameron, D. 2004. (archived posting in online discussion forum ‘[Telecentres]
Telecentres; Roles’, 20 Oct 2004 (http://mailmannew.greennet.org.uk/pipermail/telecentres/2004-October/000313.html)
Chambers, R. 1983. Rural development: putting the last first. Harlow, Longman.
Commonwealth of Learning, 1993. Symposium papers: women’s literacy and distance
education. Vancouver, CoL.
Commonwealth of Learning, 2002. ‘Distance education and open learning in subSaharan Africa: a literature survey on policy and practice, final report.’ Report
prepared for Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA).
Vancouver, CoL.
Commonwealth of Learning (CoL), 2004. Poverty reduction outcomes through
education innovations and networks (CoL-PROTEIN).
(www.col.org/programmes/capacity/protein.htm)
Commonwealth of Learning, 2005. CoL News February 2005, Vancouver, CoL
Daniel, J. 2004. ‘Literacy and livelihoods: learning for life in a changing world’.
Paper at literacy and livelihoods experts meeting, Vancouver, November 2004.
(downloadable from www.col.org/speeches/) . Vancouver, CoL.
Diallo, B. and L. Engvall, 2000. ‘Telecentres for developing countries: the Mali Case
Study – Tombouctou’.
Dodds, A.J. 1996. The use of distance learning in non-formal education. Vancouver
and Cambridge, CoL and IEC.
Dodds, A.J. 2001. ‘Universities, adult basic education, open and lifelong learning and
new technology: resources for change in developing countries: Some thoughts
106732344
Page 35 of 40
from Namibia.’ Paper at roundtable conference, DEASA. (Downloadable from
www.literacy.org/products/ili/pdf/UTLPdodds.pdf).
Dodds, T., L. Obare and G. O. Joricka, 2004. ‘WIFIP end of project evaluation
report’. Cambridge, International Extension College.
Dupont, G. 2002. ‘Life equals life long education’. Paris, UNESCO.
(www.eurisy.assoc.fr/events/Vienna/DupontVienna.htm)
Economist, March 12 2005. ‘The real digital divide’. (Leader article). London, The
Economist.
Edirisingha, P. 1999. Open and distance learning for basic and non-formal education
in developing countries. Paper for Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open
Learning, Brunei, 1-5 March 1999. (downloadable from www.col.org/forum/)
Vancouver, CoL
Edstrom, L.-O., Erdos R. and R. Prosser (eds.) 1970. Mass education: studies in adult
education and teaching by correspondence in some developing countries.
Uppsala, The Dag Hammarskjold Foundation
Etta, F. and S. Parvyn-Wamahiu (eds.) 2003. Information and communication
technologies for development in Africa: volume 2. The experience with
community telecentres. Dakar (Senegal) and Ottawa (Canada),
CODESIRA/IDRC.
Farrell, G. (ed.) 2004. ICT and literacy: who benefits? Vancouver, CoL
Fraser, C. and S. Restrepo-Estrada 1998. Communicating for development: human
change for survival. London, I.B. Taurus
Fuenzalida, E. R. (ed.) 1992. Alfabetizacion y postalfabetizacion por radio. Madrid (et
al), Editorial Popular, Organizacion de Estados Iberoamericanos and Quinto
Centenario
Giggey, S. 1988. Rural community resource centres: a guide for developing countries.
London (et al) MacMillan
Gomez, R., P. Hunt and E. Lamoureux 1999. ‘Wondering about telecentres: can they
contribute to sustainable development in Latin America?’ Published in Spanish
in Revista Latinoamericana de communicacion CHASQUI, no 66, June 1999;
Ottawa, International Development Research Centre (IDRC) (downloadable
from http://idrinfo.idrc.ca/archive/corpdocs/113552/wondering.htm)
Hadi, A. 1990. ‘Education and development in Somalia; the contribution of distance
education’. MA dissertation. London, Institute of Education
Hargreaves, D. 1980. Adult literacy and broadcasting: the BBC’s experience; a report
to the Ford Foundation. London, Frances Pinter and New York, Nichols
Publishing Company
Hornik, R. C. 1988. Development communication. New York, Longman.
IMFUNDO, 2004. Improving access to education via satellites in Africa: a primer.
KnowledgeBank paper 1, London, DFID.
Intelecon Research, 2000. ‘Final report: The use of information and communications
technology (ICT) in learning and distance education. South Africa, Ghana,
Mozambique, Fiji, Trinidad and Tobago, Canada.’ Consultant’s report prepared
for Commonwealth of Learning. Vancouver, CoL.
Institute of Education, University of London and International Extension College (IoE
and IEC), 1996. Non-formal and adult basic education at a distance: a reader.
Cambridge, International Extension College.
International Extension College (IEC) nd. ‘Mobilizing messages: A World Bank
training package in the appropriate use of media for rural development’.
106732344
Page 36 of 40
(Comprising video, reference material, introduction and guide and workshop
handouts). Cambridge, International Extension College.
International Extension College (IEC) 2005. ‘WIFIP: Women in Fishing Industry
Project. (Downloadable pages from http://www.iec.ac.uk/)
Jensen, M. 2000. Access to ICTs in rural areas – the African telecentre experience.
(www.agricta.org/afagrict-l/telecentres.htm)
Jensen, M. 2001. ‘African internet connectivity. Information & communication
technologies (ICTs) telecommunications, internet and computer infrastructure in
Africa’. (http://www3.sn.apc.org/)
Latchem, C. 2001. ‘Using telecentres in support of distance education.’ Vancouver,
CoL (www.col.org/Knowledge/ks_telecentres.htm)
Latchem, C. and D. Walker (eds.) 2001. Telecentres: case studies and key issues.
Vancouver, CoL
Latchem, C., A. Maru and K. Alluri 2004. ‘Lifelong learning for farmers
(L3Farmers)’. (Consultant’s report).Vancouver, Commonwealth of Learning.
(http://www.col.org/Consultancies/04L3Farmers.htm)
Marshall, G. and M. Ruohonen (eds.) 1998. Capacity building for IT in education in
developing countries. London (et al), Chapman & Hall
Mellar, H. et al 2004. ICT and adult literacy, numeracy and ESOL. Research report.
London, National Research and Development Centre for adult literacy and
numeracy, Institute of Education (downloadable from www.nrdc.org.uk)
Myers, M. 1997. Media monitoring visit to Senegal and Mali; report to International
Centre for Humanitarian Reporting, Geneva
Myers, M. 2004. Educational and developmental radio for rural women:
understanding broadcasters and listeners in a case study of Eritrea.
International and Rural Development Department, University of Reading,
Reading.
National Association of Advisers for Computers in Education (NAACE), 2002. ICT
and literacy. (downloadable from www.basic-skills-observatory.co.uk/ and
further information available from www.naace.org )
Nonyongo, E. P. and A.T. Ngengebule (eds.) 1998. Learner support services: case
studies of DEASA member institutions. Pretoria, UNISA
OFSTED (Office for Standards in Education), 2002. ICT in schools: effect of
government initiatives. Progress report April 2002. London, OFSTED.
(downloadable from www.ofsted.gov.uk)
Oliveira, J. 1988. ‘Project ACESSO: an application of distance learning for
professional training’. Washington DC, EDI, World Bank.
Pennells, J. and C. Ezeomah, 2000. ‘Basic education for refugees and nomads’ in
Yates, C. and J. Bradley (eds.) 2000. Basic education at a distance. London and
New York, RoutledgeFalmer.
Perraton, H. 1982. ‘Mass media, basic education and agrictultural extension.’
Discussion paper N. 82-1, Population and human resources division, The World
Bank. Washington, The World Bank.
Perraton, H. (ed.) 1993. Distance education for teacher training. London and New
York, Rotledge
Perraton, H. 2000a. ‘Information and communication technologies for education in
the south’. Cambridge, International Research Foundation for Open Learning.
Perraton, H. 2000b. Open and distance learning in the developing world. London,
Routledge
106732344
Page 37 of 40
Perraton, H. and C. Creed, 2000. Applying new technolohies and cost-effective
delivery systems in basic education. Paris, UNESCO, (Thematic study).
Pridmore, P., C. Yates, K. Kuhn and H. Xerinda, forthcoming. ‘The role of open,
distance and flexible learning (ODFL) in HIV/AIDS prevention and mitigation
for affected youth in South Africa and Mozambique’. Final report. Institute of
Education and International Extension College, London and Cambridge.
Proenza, F. J., R. Bastidas-Buch and G. Monero, 2001. ‘Telecenters for
socioeconomic and rural development in Latin America and the Caribbean:
investment opportunities and design recommendations, with special reference to
Central America’. FAO, ITU and IADB, Washington D.C.
(www.iadb.org/regions/itdev/telecenters/index.htm)
Pye, D. and J. Stephenson 2003. Using ICT to increase the effectiveness of
community-based, non-formal education for rural people in sub-Saharan
Africa: the CERP Project. Researching the issues: 50. London, DFID/National
Foundation for Educational Research.
Reddi, U. and A. Dighe, 2000. ‘Literacy and adult education through distance and
open learning’ in Yates, C. and J. Bradley (eds.) 2000. Basic education at a
distance. London and New York, RoutledgeFalmer.
Rezwan, A. H. M. 2004. ‘Literacy for sustainable livelihoods: perspective from
Bangladesh.’ Paper at literacy and livelihoods experts meeting, Vancouver,
November 2004. (downloadable from
www.col.org/programmes/conferences/L&L/Paper_Rezwan.pdf).Vancouver,
Commonwealth of Learning.
Robinson, B. 1995. ‘Mongolia in transition: a role for distance education?’ in Open
learning, 3, 3: 3-15
Robinson, B. 1999. ‘Open and distance learning in the Gobi Desert: non-formal
education for nomadic women’ in Distance education, 20, 2: 180-204
Robinson-Pant, A. 2001. Why eat green cucumbers at the time of dying? Exploring
the link between women’s literacy and development: a Nepal perspective.
Hamburg, UNESCO Institute for Education.
Rogers, A. 2004. Non-formal education: Flexible schooling or participatory
education? Hong Kong, Comparative Education research Centre, University of
Hong Kong.
Rogers, A., B. Maddox et al 1999. Redefining post-literacy in a changing world.
Education research report No. 29. London, DFID.
Samuels, J. 2001. ‘Using ICT to develop literacy and numeracy: research summary’.
London, Ufi.
Schreiner, H. 1998. ‘Rural women, development and telecommunications: a pilot
programme in South Africa’, in Sweetman, C. (ed.) 1998. Gender and
technology. Oxford, Oxfam.
Shaffer, R. 1990. Dr AMREF radio talks. Nairobi, African Medical and Research
Foundation.
Siaciwena, R. (ed.) 2000. Case studies of non-formal education by open and distance
learning. Vancouver and London, Commonwealth of Learning and DFID.
(Downloadable from http://www.col.org/consultancies/00nonformal.htm )
Singh, M. and McKay, V. (eds.) 2004. Enhancing adult basic learning: training
educators and unlocking the potential of distance and open learning. Hamburg
and Pretoria, UNESCO Institute for Education and UNISA
Spronk, B. 1997. ‘Report on radio schools in Latin America’. Cambridge, IEC
106732344
Page 38 of 40
Spronk, B. 1999. ‘Non-formal education at a distance: a framework for discussion’.
Paper for Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning, Brunei, 1-5 March
1999. (downloadable from www.col.org/forum/PCFpapers/spronk.pdf)
Vancouver, CoL
Spronk, B. 2001. ‘Naming the learning technology issues in developing countries’, in
Burge, E. J. and M. Haughey (eds.) 2001. Using learning technologies:
international perspectives on practice. London and New York,
RoutledgeFalmer
Street, B. (ed) 2001. Literacy and development: ethnographic perspectives. London
and New York, Routledge.
Thomas, J. 1996. Distance education for refugees: the experience of using distance
and open learning with refugees in Africa, 1980-1995 with guidelines and a
directory of information. Cambridge, International Extension College.
Turner, T. C. 1993. ‘Literacy and machines: an overview of the use of technology in
adult literacy programs.’ Philadelphia, National Center on Adult Literacy.
Ufi/Basic Skills Agency, 2002. Using ICT to develop literacy and numeracy: a guide
for learning centres working with adult learners. Ufi. (downloadable from
www.basic-skills-observatory.co.uk/)
Umar, A. and G. Tahir, 1998. ‘Open broadcasting for nomadic pastoralists’, in G.
Tahir and N. Muhammad (eds) Readings on distance education for the pastoral
nomads of Nigeria, Zaria, Ahmadu Bello University Press.
UNESCO, 1997. World information report 1997/1998. Paris, UNESCO
UNESCO, 2000a. The world education report 2000, The right to education: towards
education for all throughout life. Paris, UNESCO.
http://www.unesco.org/education/information/wer/PDFeng/wholewer.PDF
UNESCO, 2000b. World Education Forum, final report. Paris, UNESCO
UNESCO, 2002a. Early childhood care? Development? Education? Policy Briefs on
Early Childhood, No 1, March.[Cuba case study, cited in GMR 2002:63]
UNESCO, 2002b. Education for all: is the world on track? EFA Global monitoring
report 2002. Paris, UNESCO
UNESCO, 2004. Education for all: the quality imperative. EFA Global monitoring
report 2005. Paris, UNESCO
UNESCO, 2005. ‘Internet radio in Sri Lanka’.
http://www.unesco.org/webworld/highlights/internet_radio_130599.html
Waite, S. 2004 ‘Tools for the job: a report of two surveys of information and
communications technology training and use for literacy in primary schools in
the West of England’. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 20, 11-20.
Warr, D. 1992. Distance teaching in the village. A case study of basic functional
education for rural development, Allama Iqbal Open University, Pakistan.
Cambridge, International Extension College.
Williams, R. Forthcoming. Literacy and livelihoods. Module 7, Postgraduate
Progamme in Open, Distance and Flexible Learning. London and Cambridge,
University of London External Programme and International Extension College.
WISIS, 2003. ‘Civil society declaration to the World Summit on the Information
Society, “Shaping information societies for human needs” ’. WISIS Civil
Society Plenary, Geneva, 8 December 2003. (Version with corrections, 12
December 2003) (Downloadable from http://www.wsis-cs.org)
Yates, C. 1998. ‘Review of open and distance learning research in primary and adult
basic education.’ Cambridge, International Research Foundation for Open
Learning.
106732344
Page 39 of 40
Yates, C. and J. Bradley (eds.) 2000. Basic education at a distance. London and New
York, RoutledgeFalmer.
Young, M. 1992. ‘Where do we go from here?’ Conference speech reproduced in
‘World education crisis: roles for distance education. Keynote speeches and a
review of the conference held on 20-24 September 1992 at Robinson College,
Cambridge.’ Cambridge, IEC.
Jason Pennells
IEC
Cambridge
Jason.pennells@iec.ac.uk
www.iec.ac.uk
14 June 2005
106732344
Page 40 of 40