Integrating EFA and LLL
Conclusions from Review of Adult Learning
and Education in the Asia Pacific
Prepared for CONFINTEA VI Preparatory Conference for Asia
and the Pacific, Seoul, 6 October 2008
Manzoor Ahmed
NIER Policy Conference, Tokyo, 12 March 2009
Development since the 1990s
EFA Global Monitoring Team review shows:
– First priority - expansion of opportunities for
children and adolescents in primary and
secondary education
– The next level of priority - adult literacy with
quantitative targets set in countries
– Lowest priority - learning needs of youth and
adults focusing on life skills and lifelong learning
Developments…
The diversity in learning objectives, target
learners and mode of delivery explains to a
degree the absence of global or national
quantitative targets in adult education;
And the difficulty of providing a good overview
of the prevalence and functioning of these
programmes.
Developments…
– Adult Education is complementary ,
supplementary, compensatory, or substitute to
the formal system directed to children and
youth.
– However, the purposes and rationale of adult
education, and lifelong learning, and its clientele,
modes of delivery and management, are also its
own; these cannot be served or replaced by or
defined in terms of the general formal education
system ; there can be no LLL without ALE .
Concepts and definitions
• A broad vision of adult education and learning
has been evolving through national programmes
and international consensus - reaching a
convergence within the framework of lifelong
learning, eloquently expressed in the Hamburg
declaration in 1997.
• Literacy remains a crucial concern; but useful
only as a continuum of skills, attaining
functionality and self-sufficiency ; conventional
dichotomous definition , assessment methods
and announced literacy rates are self-defeating.
Convergence of literacy, adult edn. & lifelong
learning
Adapted from R. M. Torres.
Concepts…
• EFA, Jomtien broad vision and Dakar Goals,
embraced AE and saw it as key to LLL. But EFA
focus remained on primary education.
• Dakar Goals attempted to restore balance; but
created a dichotomy between literacy and life
skills education/LLL; and seemed to give an
unintended boost to prevailing narrow view
of literacy.
Policy, Strategies and Participation
Empirical observation suggests an Asian taxonomy:
• Low basic education countries – still struggling with children’s basic
education; less attention to ALE/LLL
• Advanced basic edn. countries – good advance in children’s basic edn
and diversified scope and larger scale of ALE.
• China and India – own category with great diversity within each,
building components of LLL .
• Developed Asia – Children/youth basic edn and adult literacy largely
achieved - ALE/LLL focus at post-school level
• Foreshadowing future for developing Asia – Rep. of Korea with a
comprehensive LLL legal framework and mandatory national LLL
promotion plan every five years.
Markers of Inequality
• Disparity and inequality must be overcome in varying
degree in all categories in the above taxonomy.
• The well-known markers of inequality – gender,
geography, age, socio-economic status, ethnicity,
language, religion and other socio-cultural factors.
• Paradox – ALE itself the victim of disadvantages of its
clientele which it is expected to overcome; this must
be a key consideration in visualizing strategy.
• A comprehensive LLL perspective and ALE as the core
can place disadvantaged people on a lifelong learning
cycle to meet their occupational and personal needs.
Quality with Equity
• Overall, key elements of quality include: curriculum, teachinglearning process, monitoring and assessment - all together
producing desired learning outcomes.
• Re curricular content and objectives, flourishing of ALE/LLL hinges
on how it becomes relevant to key developmental concerns.
• Several development challenges stand out – fighting poverty,
sustainable survival and development, and building democratic
polity with human dignity and justice. Other contextually specific
issues are also important.
• Establishing priorities and figuring out how ALE/LLL responds are a
complex and continuing task; involves national oversight /guidance
and professional/management staff participation in each of
diverse adult/LLE activities.
• National priority to ALE/LLL is justified by how it addresses society’s
challenges.
Quality ….
• Professionalism and professionalisation have to be brought
into policy-making, management, supervision, monitoring
and learning assessment, training and instructor/facilitator
functions. Voluntarism not enough for ALE/LLL to play its
development role.
• Equivalency frameworks have to be developed and used for
many areas of complementary and substitute education
activities.
• Complexity and diversity of field require creative solutions
– a culture of quality, not one standard formula for quality
assurance
Governance and Organizational
Provisions
• Good governance and management in ALE/LLL – even more
than in other areas of education – requires local
autonomous structures, participatory practices, community
ownership , strong accountability, and transparency.
• Even with some devolution of functions, locus of decisions
often remain at the central level within government
structure – constraining the potential of ALE/LLL.
• Networks of multi-purpose community-based learning
centers, with technical and capacity-building support, can
be a concrete form of decentralization for effective ALE/LLL.
Adequate Resources
• ALE/LLL not key component in national education
budget thinking.
Typical ALE/LLL allocation is less than 1 percent of
education budget – much lower in some cases.
• Sectorwide approach needed to mobilise
resources and promote quality-driven approach.
• Literacy programmes with acceptable quality may
require 50 to 100 dollars per year per learner for
three years.
• Governments and external donors have not lived
up to commitment to support ALE/LL adequately.
Turning the Vision into reality
• The new millennium has sparked a revival of interest in adult
education as the core of lifelong learning to meet 21st century
challenges; both need and potential are greater now to fulfill
the vision expressed in Hamburg in 1997.
• Amartya Sen’s capability approach provides a powerful
rationale for lifelong learning as the conceptual underpinning
for educational development goals and strategies.
• Drawing on the expectations and perspectives expressed by
the Asia-Pacific countries, eight points are proposed as the
elements for a strategy to raise the profile of adult education
and learning and, thereby, create lifelong learning
opportunities for all according to their needs and aspirations.
Vision to Reality…
1.
Re-commitment to the vision of ALE/LLL leading to creating
the Learning Society and the Learning Community - Being
guided by the vision of diverse and widespread adult learning
and education (ALE) as the core of lifelong learning (LLL),
governments, people and the international partners must recommit themselves to build a rich network of learning
opportunities for all throughout life according to their needs
and aspirations.
_ A sector approach covering literacy, NFE, continuing edn, life
skills, production skills etc.
_ A high level national oversight body (LLL Council) to
champion, assess progress, and guide action.
Vision to Reality ….
2. A Multi-pronged approach to promote “ Critical Literacy”
and combat poverty- Due attention has to be given to
functional literacy and promoting critical consciousness as
the foundation for lifelong learning, empowering people to
help themselves.
- Integrated approach linking skills in literacy and productive
skills with ancillary support; and knowledge / skills related
to quality of life, protecting environment, health, child
rearing, citizen’s rights etc.
- Community-owned multipurpose centre offering a needbased learning menu.
Vision to Reality…
3. A culture of quality - Inculcating a culture of quality in
ALE/LLL, setting and enforcing quality standards, providing for
technical support and necessary resources in teaching and
management personnel development, curriculum and
learning materials, assessment of learning, and management
and monitoring with attention to process and results demand
priority and adequate resources.
Key components – multi-faceted quality assurance, better
HR policy and practice including enhanced incentive and
professional support for teachers, assessment capacity building, and use of ICT to enrich learning and bridge digital
divide.
Vision to Reality…
4. Linking ALE/LLL to critical development challenges Relevance of ALE/LLL in meeting critical challenges of
development and modernization of countries must be
established and enhanced.
Determining global, national and contextually specific
development challenges, and how these figure in ALE/LLL call
for sharing experiences and participatory decision-making.
Some major common challenges stand out: a) fighting poverty,
b) promoting sustainable development, and c) building
participatory democracy and the democratic polity. There are
other important concerns in each society and community,
which must be addressed in the ALE/LLL agenda.
Vision to Reality…
5. Affirmative action to address inequality - A policy of
affirmative action must be adopted to identify and serve the
disadvantaged and marginalized sections of the population
with strategies that address their specific needs.
Reaching out to disadvantaged and neglected groups have to be
a central mission of;
High priority has to be given to overcoming gender injustice and
disparity.
Specialized and more directly targeted projects would serve
groups disadvantaged in multiple ways, such as, ethnic and
linguistic minorities, indigenous people, slum dwellers, the
ultra-poor, and people with disabilities and special needs .
Vision to Reality…
6. Governance and management to fit the goal
– Governance and management of ALE/LLL
should be based on government-civil society
partnership and decentralized enough to make it
responsive to local conditions and accountable to
the learners and the community.
Major components :
Partnership building;
- Genuine decentralisation promoted by trial and
experiment and involving local government;
- Transparency and accountability to beneficiaries
Vision to Reality….
7. Resources and their effective use - A major
increase must be assured in resources for
ALE/LLL, with mobilization from all sources and
better use of resources.
Components :
- Rethinking resource needs,
-A major allocation for teaching personnel,
- Target of 3-5 percent of govt. education budget
for ALE/LLL by 2015,
- At least $2.5 bill annual donor support for
ALE/LLL with appropriate share for Asian
developing countries.
Vision to Reality…
8. Regional and international cooperation. Lessons from
experience should be captured and shared through
cooperation among countries, organizations and
institutions; existing international cooperation
mechanisms should be strengthened; and the rich countries
should fulfill their pledge of cooperation.
Components:
Unique opportunity to share experiences in the region
with diversity and varying levels of progress:
Strengthened international and national civil society
coopertaion; and
External assistance to support cooperation and exchange.
Five Asia Pacific Priorities
•Recommitment to ALE/LLL – Creating Learning
Society and Learning Community
•Linking ALE/LLL to critical development
challenges (including critical literacy)
•Affirmative action to address inequalities and
disparities
•More resources and their better use
•Governance and management to fit the goal genuine decentralization with a nationwide
network of Multipurpose community-owned
learning centres as building blocks of LLL.
To conclude….
A resurgence of education and learning for all –
children, youth and adults – and throughout life is
happening. The poor and the disadvantaged must
not be left out from this resurgence and the
emerging Asian Century. Let all have a stake in it and
claim their due by expanding their own capabilities
through education and learning.