Comments On the UN Literacy Decade
By: Maria Lourdes Almazan-Khan of the Asian South Pacific Bureau of Education (ASPBAE)
for the Panel on the UN Literacy Decade, UNESCO Working Group on EFA, July 22, 2003
in Paris
In February 2003, the UN Literacy Decade was launched in New York. As conceived, this
initiative aims to muster the necessary attention and support from national governments, the
international community, civil society organisations and other stakeholders in achieving the
EFA and Millenium Development Goals related to literacy especially of women and girls. It
intends priority attention to regions where the needs are greatest (South Asia, Sub-Saharan
Africa and the E-9 countries), likewise in pockets of exclusion in more literate societies
(among the poorest, indigenous communities, those living in remote areas or areas of conflict
etc.)
Confirming the observation in the Working Paper of this meeting – there is very little we
know to date of the actual play of the UNLD at the regional or country level. My comments
will therefore be limited by the fact that I have not been directly part of a UNLD process nor
had the opportunity to directly observe how it has so far functioned.
The EFA Monitoring Report 2002 clearly outlines the enormity of the challenge for literacy
and the UNLD.
In the countries of South Asia especially in the E 9 countries of Bangladesh, India and
Pakistan, basic education for children and adults, remains elusive. It has been estimated that
India, Nepal and Pakistan are at serious risk of not achieving 3 of the key Dakar goals - UPE,
adult literacy and gender equality, with Bangladesh and Sri Lanka likely not to achieve at
least one of these (UNESCO 2002). Gains in enrolments have been negated by high dropout
rates. Many are ‘pushed out’ of the formal system too soon before they acquire the basic skills
and motivation to acquire further learning - and join the large adult illiterate population.
Quality of education remains a serious problem that detracts from the improvements in access
over the last decade. Public (government) schools still lack basic physical amenities, from
buildings to notebooks. Teachers are underpaid and overburdened with non-teaching duties,
being a captive pool for all manner of government tasks. They are also often under-trained,
and lack the ability to appeal to children's natural curiosity and learning abilities. Teaching
materials are few relative to the requirements, and of low quality. A very large number of
children are undernourished, and lack a literate home environment. (Roy and Almazan-Khan
2003)
Girls and women and especially those belonging to marginalised communities, face a greater
disadvantage than others. In describing the Bangladesh case for instance in the ASPBAE
study “Bridging the Gap to girls and women’s education in South Asia”, the constraints to the
equal participation of girls in education were outlined in different dimensions: (a) sociocultural for instance gender stereotyped socialization, perceived non-relevance of formal
education for girls, pressure on rural parents to arrange early marriage and invest in dowry;
(b) poverty related such as pressure on poor girls to engage in wage work, and/or help in
domestic chores and hidden costs in education such as for uniforms, exercise books, various
fees and extra coaching; and (c) systemic or structural such as limited access in remote areas
due to unsatisfactory roads and transport, inadequate number of schools and facilities in
underserved areas, lack of gender sensitivity in textbooks especially at the secondary level
and increasing violence and hostility to girl's education say from conservative groups (Jahan
1998).
All analyses of sustainable learning emphasise that it should be integral to people's everyday
lives - making the task of bringing adults into sustainable literacy, given their compulsions -the need to work and earn, support the family, care for children -- more onerous. Further,
achieving literacy but encountering only roadblocks in any subsequent desire to learn has
been seen to be counter-productive.
These details serve to highlight the urgent need to integrate education planning with other
social sectors and indeed economic development so that quality of education is enhanced and
economic and employment indices are transformed alongside attitudes and social traditions.
Hence, one concern regarding the flagship approach: aren’t we seeing too many of them?
Wouldn’t these parallel efforts reinforce compartmentalised rather than coordinated action;
segmentation instead of integration?
For literacy – especially adult literacy - the case for coordination and integrated action cannot
be made stronger. The recent World Bank Working Paper “Rethinking World Bank Policy
and Practice in Support of Adult and Non-formal Education” takes from the experience of
post-literacy programmes it reviewed and observes that building an effective demand for
adult literacy and NFE requires putting in place sufficient opportunities for the use of these
knowledge and skills. However, “ providers of educational services cannot, with rare
exception, create fields of application for the new knowledge participants acquire all by
themselves….” “These fields of application principally derive from and depend upon sectors
of local development and social life – health, micro credit, livelihood development,
agriculture and training, for instance (Easton, Sidikou, Aoki and Crouch 2003).
This reinforces the view that inter-agency cooperation, multi-stakeholder coordination and
joint action among the different stakeholders in literacy and continuing education at the
national and sub-national levels is fundamental in addressing the challenge of adult illiteracy.
This is not a new notion. We had emphasised in Dakar that EFA is not the sole domain of
government, nor of the state agencies and ministries of education.
The experience in ‘cooperation’ at the local level over the last two years following Dakar
however, has not been very encouraging. The National EFA Forums rarely functioned or
when they did – the experience was far from what was envisaged in Dakar. CSO participation
in developing National Action Plans (NAPs) was minimal and in many instances token.
Governments were keen to pass on the difficult task of implementation to CSOs, but were
reluctant to say the least in opening doors to their participation in policy and programme
development and assessment.
The ASPBAE review of CSO participation in the development of National Action Plans also
observed that at the country level, EFA still remains in the realm of abstract notions and
statistical targets that governments must show they are achieving – with adverse impact on
building broad-based participation and a sense of ownership and accountability to the EFA
commitments by the groups who should be mobilised in achieving EFA. In response to
proposals to widen consultation and involvement of other government agencies and CSOs in
the development of EFA plans, it has not been uncommon for governments to reply in the
negative since “ a lengthy process is likely to delay the finalisation of the Plan” (Razon 2003).
We are wary of how the flagships would further reinforce these tendencies as we can only
assume, this bore negatively as well on the quality of the National Action Plans to date.
Opening up the policy process to greater participation constitutes a completely different space
for policy interaction that calls for new sets of capacities from both the new and conventional
players in the local policy process (Razon 2003). We fear that this proliferation of flagships
would bear down heavily on these capacities which as they were, are already wearing thin.
We fear that this would translate into further externally defined, disparate activities, reports,
researches prompted more by individual flagship concerns rather than the relative value of
each in making a difference in a given situation for EFA.
We may be forgiven this scepticism perhaps when we refer to the experience in donor
participation and coordination on the EFA follow-up at the national level. Donor involvement
and coordination – very encouraging to observe at the international level – was conspicuous
in its absence at the national level. Three years after Dakar, and we have yet to understand,
what should be the mechanism for coordination of donors with regards to EFA - and indeed
these different flagships - at the national level.
We need to understand how donors at the national level will engage with and respond to the
financing requirements of the National EFA plans – determining that which could be met by
local and existing commitments and how further resources required beyond these would be
provided for, globally.
Key Concerns of the UN Literacy Decade
Financing remains an outstanding concern, more so with regards to the adult literacy targets.
Existing statistics even on current assumptions bear evidence that financing for adult literacy
is seriously inadequate. These do not even constitute a more grounded assessment of the
investment needs of sustainable adult literacy. This should take into account for instance: 1)
the development of a literacy and education infrastructure linked to people's lifelong needs:
community learning centres, libraries and reading rooms; 2) the production of materials for
neo-literates which are not only informative, but also creative and appealing; 3)
improvements in the quality of teaching that inspire interest and accommodate the varied
learning needs and contexts of adults; and 4) continuing education opportunities which link
literacy and education to self-development and skills training - particularly important for
raising the self- esteem and bargaining power of disadvantaged groups, and of the women
among them. A more careful assessment of the financial requirements for these should be
determined and constitute a critical agenda of EFA and the UN Literacy Decade. (Roy and
Almazan-Khan 2003)
Financing issues will have to be linked to determining a more effective institutional
framework and coordinating mechanism at the ground level – especially for post-literacy and
continuing education. What could different government agencies take on? What activities
could be best undertaken by CSOs? What capacities will have to be built further for these
agents to take on given roles? In considering these, care must be taken to avoid passing on
responsibility for provisioning to learners and their communities already burdened as they are
by the inherited disadvantage of generations of poverty and a subsistence existence.
According priority to adult literacy and non-formal education, should not feed into the trend
of providing the lowest quality education to most disadvantaged groups. Undeniably, in the
short term, non-formal education does fill a critical gap, addressing the learning needs of
those pushed out of the formal system. However, these measures, far inferior as they are
currently, should not be treated as permanent alternatives to quality formal education for
children. The universalisation of elementary education is contingent upon the universalisation
of formal education of good quality for all children. That is the aim, and is non-negotiable.
Likewise, no concessions should be made in the quality of education offered in the nonformal, alternative stream. While norms in the formal system are at least premised on the
provision of a full complement of facilities and frameworks for expression -- library,
laboratory, playing grounds and equipment, arts, crafts and non-academic inputs, an average
school day of 4 to 5 hours – the normative standards for quality non-formal education are
vaguely defined (Roy and Almazan-Khan 2003).
Relatedly therefore, is the dire need for better assessment, monitoring and evaluation systems
and a better framework for accountability. Inaccurate statistics vitiate the very basis on which
future programmes and financial allocations are made (Roy and Almazan-Khan 2003). We
are thus heartened by the effort to upgrade the quality of literacy assessments through LAMP,
the NFE-MIS and others. We are hopeful that these would contribute towards a robust, cogent
and meaningful EFA Monitoring Report in 2005/2006 tracking progress on the literacy
targets. In upgrading literacy assessments however, care must be taken to ensure that these are
designed in a way that builds on what is relevant and needed most especially at the local level
and enhances capacities locally to sustain credible and reliable assessment systems and
processes.
In summary, what the UN Literacy Decade and the EFA follow-up processes should strive to
achieve as soon as possible is to set up and strengthen – at the local level - the mechanisms
that would best signal what constitutes sound, relevant and timely external support for EFA.
These can be achieved through the following processes:
Strengthening the National and sub-national EFA Forums: Notwithstanding its shaky
start, the merits for creating a broad multi-stakeholder forum to advance EFA in-country,
remain. Support – financial, technical, political - should be given to strengthening and
enhancing these forums at local levels so that these are constituted and function in an open,
transparent manner and equipped to perform the following functions:
1) mobilise broad participation, substantive involvement and support of the different
stakeholders in EFA within government, civil society organisations, the private sector
and the donor community in implementing the National Action Plans on EFA;
2) promote inter-agency coordination and cooperation;
3) further improve on and enhance the strategies identified in the National Action Plans
in a way that:

reinforces commitment to adequate and efficient public financing of education, gives
priority attention to educationally disadvantaged groups,

institutes bold reforms to improve learning outcomes including a commitment to
decent salaries and professional development for teachers, and

pays due attention to all the goals committed to in Dakar(GCE 2002);
4) track progress in relation to the EFA targets, signalling the appropriate policy and
programmatic shifts needed and financing requirements therein.
Donor Coordination: The donor community – in discussion with government and civil
society groups through the National EFA Forums – should come together, jointly define and
urgently set up at the country-level, the most suitable, effective, timely, coordinated and
transparent mechanism for responding to the financing requirements identified for EFA. The
functioning of the flagship programmes including the UN Literacy Decade should be located
within this mechanism and provide the additional thrust to mobilise dedicated international
political and financial support to assist countries in the aspects locally identified as essential
in advancing the given (flagship) areas. These would have been determined with and through
consultation with the National and sub-national EFA Forums and other relevant groups.
Capacities of donor field staff and functioning of field offices should be enhanced to enable
the sensitivity, flexibility and strategic view, to make this happen.
Local-Global Complementation: These processes are not intended to replace existing global
efforts rather complement, interact with and underpin the work of the such mechanisms as the
Global EFA Monitoring Report, the High level Group on EFA and the Donor Consortium.
These however would lend further credence and reality to the Dakar 2000 realisation and
promise that the "heart of EFA activity is at the national level". And as the main
responsibility for delivering on the EFA commitments rests on the increased efforts of
governments, donors and other stakeholders at the national level – it is high time that support
manifest itself more strongly in this sphere.
References
Easton, Peter, Maman Sidikou, Aya Aoki and Luis Crouch. 2003. ‘Rethinking World Bank
Policy and Practice in Support of Adult and Non-formal Education’. World Bank Working
Paper. Washington
Global Campaign on Education. 2002. ‘An Action Plan to Achieve the MDGs in Education’.
Briefing Paper. Amsterdam.
Jahan, Roushan. 1998.’The Bangladesh Experience’ in Bridging the Gap between Intention
and Action: Girls and Women’s Education in South-Asia’. New Delhi: ASPBAE.
Razon, Maria Persevera. 2003. ‘Civil Society and Spaces for participation in Country EFA
Processes: Lessons from Asia and the South Pacific’. Mumbai: ASPBAE.
Roy, Menaka Roy and Maria Lourdes A. Khan. 2003. ‘Education for all in India: Going up
the down staircase’ ASPBAE Paper submitted to the EFA Monitoring Report 2003/4.
Mumbai.
UNESCO. 2002. ‘Education for All: Is the World on Track’. EFA Global Monitoring Report.
Paris: UNESCO