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As this Report shows, countries face adaunting task if they are to take theircommitments seriously: close to 800 millionpeople are unable to exercise the right toliteracy and survey data suggest that the

figure may be much higher. Large numbers possessweak literacy skills after several years in school, or losethem over time. Even in highly developed countries,certain particularly disadvantaged groups may be heldback by low education levels. In both developed anddeveloping countries, globalization and the growth ofthe knowledge economy are creating demand for newliteracy skills. In addition to the EFA literacy goal’squantitative target focused on individual skills, a broadunderstanding of literacy implies the wider aim ofbuilding literate societies.

Literacy is more than a single goal; it is at thecentre of the whole EFA endeavour. That is why thisReport calls for a three-pronged strategyencompassing (a) quality schooling for all children,(b) scaled up literacy programmes for youth and adults,and (c) the development of environments conduciveto the meaningful use of literacy. This approachrecognizes both the individual and the broader socialdimension of literacy. For the poorest countries,sustained investment in universal, good-quality primaryeducation is critical. But simply waiting for UPE will notsuffice. Youth and adult literacy programmes must be

Part IV. Good policy, goodmeeting the literacy

Change begins with strong political commitment. Governments should have explicit literacypolicies focused on schools, adult literacy and the literate environment

Strong, coordinated government leadership is needed, integrating all concernedministries and sectors, dovetailed with local implementation and community ownership

Partnerships between central and local government and civil societyare essential to put literacy on all agendas

Adult programmes must understand how people use their literacyskills, and respond to the priorities of learners

It is imperative to professionalize, pay and invest in literacy educators

Language policy, including multilingualism, is crucial

Print materials have a positive influence on literacy achievement

National financing strategies, including higher public spending, are required

A woman deeply engaged in a literacy class in Venezuela.

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scaled up. Appropriate language, book, media andinformation policies are needed to developenvironments in which literacy can flourish andbe valued.

Strategic imperatives

Strong and sustained political commitment to thethree-pronged strategy for literacy is the starting pointfor stepping up progress. This Report calls ongovernments to develop explicit literacy policies for allthree foundations of literacy, and to place literacy firmlywithin education sector plans and poverty reductionstrategies. Only then are the necessary institutional,human and financial resources likely to be provided.

Explicit policies imply political commitment. This isurgently needed for youth and adult literacy beyondformal school systems. Regardless of learnermotivation, regular attendance of literacy programmesebbs without constant public support. Where significantgains have been achieved, both national and localleaders have stressed the value of literacy for nation-building and development. Political commitment,popular enthusiasm and attention to language ofinstruction all played their part in the success of massliteracy campaigns. Broader public policies and well-coordinated partnerships have also been key to positiveoutcomes. Whatever the preferred route, the scaling upof literacy programmes has to be part of a majornational endeavour. Business as usual is not enough.Relatively few governments have coherent, long-termnational literacy policies encompassing attention togovernance, programme design and delivery, humanand financial resources, and the promotion of anenvironment in which individuals are encouragedto become literate and to sustain their skills.

Strong leadership. Ministries of education have primeresponsibility for literacy policy: they are best placed tointegrate literacy into education sector strategies,promote lifelong learning, coordinate publicly financedprogrammes and partnerships, and regulateaccreditation systems. In practice, responsibility forliteracy is often shared by several ministries.

Botswana, Eritrea, Namibia and Thailand areamong countries where education ministries have well-established adult or non-formal education unitsoverseeing literacy programmes. Burkina Faso andMorocco have set up separate state structures forliteracy and non-formal education to better coordinatepolicy. In many countries, management structures aredecentralized and aim to coordinate public, private andcivil society literacy providers. In others, independentnational agencies oversee adult literacy. Centralguidance and coordination has to be dovetailed withlocal implementation and community ownership.

Initiating literacy campaigns, national programmesand broad partnerships is complex: national, regionaland local management structures need to be set up,materials developed, and coordinators and facilitatorsrecruited and trained. India’s district-level TotalLiteracy Campaign, launched in 1992, is a successfulexample of a highly targeted, large-scale nationalprogramme. It mobilized community resources and setup centres offering continuing education. By March2003, 98 million adults had become literate through thiscampaign. In most countries, however, literacy activitiesare small and run by NGOs, including religious bodies.They face challenges similar to those of largerprogrammes in terms of funding, staff, materials andcommunity support. Scaling up local good practice isparticularly difficult. In Ghana, for example, anexpanded training programme requiring joint backingby government and NGOs could not finance thoseincentives, such as transport and meal allowances, thatpilot programmes had demonstrated to be important.

Partnerships are vital. They are diverse, involvingreligious groups, trade unions, private companies,universities, the media and local authorities.Partnerships are often threatened, however, byfragmentation or even competition. In Uganda, forexample, while the government has encouragedpluralism in literacy provision, many initiatives operatewithout reference to each other and tend to be limitedin coverage. Senegal’s ‘faire-faire’ model is managedby an agency set up to outsource adult literacyprovision to NGOs and small entrepreneurs. Despiteserious programme quality problems, this approach isspreading to other West African countries. In Brazil,the government’s Literate Brazil Programme relies onclose partnerships with local governments and largeNGOs with experience in adult literacy. In many Asiancountries, community learning centres combineeducation with community development activities,

practice —challenge

Literacy is more than a singlegoal; it is at the centre of the whole EFA endeavour

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enabling constructive partnerships between governmentand civil society. Putting literacy on everyone’s agenda,clarifying the roles and responsibilities of differentagencies, and establishing national coordinationmechanisms among and between providers areessential for effective literacy programmes.

The nuts and bolts of youth andadult literacy programmes

Learners’ knowledge and wishes should inform adultlearning programmes and be their starting point –an axiom that is not applied uniformly. Whatever theirobjectives, all such programmes require attention tocurriculum and pedagogy, learners’ schedules, thetraining and status of literacy educators, the learningtechnology used and the language of learning, as wellas to the broader environment in which individualspractise their literacy skills. The following are someessential dimensions of good practice.

1. Curricula and pedagogy: relevance, learning materials and participationA relevant curriculum is conducive to better learningoutcomes. Curricula must respect and build on thedemands of learners and their diverse circumstances.Sensitivity to the adult learner’s cultural background,mother tongue and life experience is required.Understanding how men and women use their literacyskills in various settings can provide valuable insightsfor the design of appropriate literacy programmes. A recent study in Ghana, for instance, showed that

among the uses to which learners put their newlyacquired literacy skills were helping children withhomework, administering medical prescriptionsproperly, communicating with government offices,writing letters, reading religious texts and openingsavings accounts.

To respond to such diverse needs and motivations,clear, appropriate and realistic goals should define the‘why’ of the curriculum. From this should flow the‘what’ – specific learning objectives that provide clearstatements of intent for learners, expressed in terms of skills, their application and wider social engagement.The curriculum should strike a balance betweenrelevance to local contexts and to wider opportunities.A frequent mistake is to incorporate training forincome-generating activities too rapidly into literacyeducation, and using instructors insufficiently qualifiedto deal with both.

Literacy teaching is often hindered by a lack oflearning materials. In Senegal, a study found that manyliteracy classes were taught orally. Adult literacy bookstend to be characterized by poor content and design.They may also contain images and themes that seem to validate inequalities, as in the case of primers thatfocus on women’s domestic roles and ignore theirparticipation in agriculture or the labour market.

Participatory, learner-centred methods areessential for adults. Critical pedagogy argues that, for true learning to happen, the voices of marginalizedgroups must be heard and fully engaged in the learningprocess. The norm, however, is still a formal, basicskills approach with emphasis on mastering reading,writing and numeracy within a specified time.

In Garissa, Kenya, a mobile librarian unloads his camel laden with books.

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2. Organizing learning groupsAs adult learners are largely voluntary, familydemands, agricultural cycles and other circumstancescan affect programme attendance. To minimize thisproblem, programmes must have sensible timetables,use suitable locations, and be sensitive to age andgender issues (for example, to attend literacy courses,women must often seek the agreement of the malehead of the family). Uganda’s strategy calls for training40,000 literacy instructors, at least half to be women, inreaction to a situation in which 70% of adult illiteratesare women while most literacy educators are men. InBurkina Faso, child care is provided to enable mothersto concentrate on their courses. In India, the MahilaSamakhya Programme in Uttar Pradesh and theWomen’s Development Programme in Rajasthan runresidential literacy camps so that women can be freefrom domestic pressures while they learn.

Most literacy programmes run 300 to 400 hoursover an average of two years. A survey by ActionAid andthe Global Campaign for Education (GCE) suggests,however, that to achieve lasting literacy, about 600hours are needed, delivered in two weekly sessions oftwo to three hours. Funding shortfalls and dependenceon external donors make it hard for many programmesto provide such regularity.

The library is an ideal place to offer family literacyprogrammes, as it provides materials for all agegroups and reading levels. Although often under-resourced, libraries and community learning centrescan offer space for classes as well as readingmaterials. In Botswana, village reading rooms havebeen set up to extend library services to literacyprogramme graduates.

3. Literacy educators: improving their statusInstructors are vital to the success of literacyprogrammes, but they are paid little if any regularremuneration, lack job security, have few trainingopportunities and rarely benefit from ongoingprofessional support. Many have no previous teachingexperience. Unless the professional development ofliteracy educators and their trainers is taken seriously,progress towards more literate societies will beseverely constrained. This matter must be givennational attention in literacy policy and practice.It cannot be something added on if resources permit.

Training of literacy educators, where it exists, isoften in a national official language while their work iscarried out in local ones. Training in numeracy teachingis especially rare and inadequate. Most non-formaltraining courses last one to two weeks, include noassessment and generally give no accreditation. InUganda, for example, educators in the government’sfunctional adult literacy programme receive a few daysof training with very little supervision. Training oftrainers for adult literacy educators is also neglected;where it exists, it tends to be overly formal, without

attention to practice. Formal training programmes forliteracy educators often run from one to three years.Delivered through institutions or through open anddistance learning, such courses, leading toaccreditation, are common in southern Africa and partsof Latin America, and are starting up in Asia. Theircontribution to the professionalization of literacyeducators is profound, but they are too lengthy toenable the rapid scaling up of literacy programmes.

Interesting training innovations exist. Mozambiqueoffers literacy educators with Grade 7 schooling thechance to upgrade their formal education andeventually be employed as full-time teachers in literacyprogrammes. In Brazil, certain courses lead tocertification as specialist teachers in adult and youtheducation. Some training programmes includeprovision for ongoing support following the training. Outof sixty programmes surveyed for this Report, over one-third offered some follow-up.

Worldwide, conditions of employment for adultliteracy educators are very poor, especially comparedto those of teachers in formal education. This situationresults in frequent turnover, with serious implicationsfor programme quality. The GCE/ActionAid survey,covering sixty-seven programmes around the world,revealed that half of the literacy educators involvedwere paid an honorarium or stipend, 25% received thenational minimum wage and about 20% were unpaid.Most programmes paid between one-fourth and one-half of a basic primary-school teacher’s salary. Surveyrespondents cited better pay and training for literacyeducators and more reading materials as primaryconcerns.

4. New learning technology: recognizing constraintsDistance learning and information and communicationtechnology (ICT) can provide opportunities for informaland non-formal literacy learning by adults, thoughaccess to technology is highly uneven in many contexts.China, India and Mexico have conducted adult basiceducation using radio and television broadcasting.Locally produced interactive radio instruction andcommunity radio can promote exchange betweenlearners and programme providers, especially forwidely scattered or mobile communities such asnomads. South Africa is experimenting with computersoftware for teaching literacy, but this is not anaffordable option for large-scale provision with very low

Literacy educators are paid little,lack job security, have few trainingopportunities and rarely benefit fromongoing professional support

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literacy rates. Cuba’s ‘Yo, sí puedo’ programme,using radio and video to enrich literacy teaching,has been adopted in several Latin Americancountries and New Zealand.

Given constraints in access, ICT and distancelearning have more immediate potential foroffering professional development to literacyeducators rather than for running programmesper se.

Although television is not accessible to muchof the world’s population, it does reach largeaudiences in many countries. Its potential as achannel for promoting literacy is considerable.

5. Developing multilingual policiesLanguage and literacy are inextricably linked.A majority of countries facing salient literacychallenges are linguistically diverse. In whatlanguage should schools teach and adultprogrammes be conducted? How should bothintegrate multilingualism to enhance the literacyprospects of all? Decisions on language mustbalance political and ethnic sensitivity,pedagogical effectiveness, costs and learnerpreferences.

The designation of official language(s) andthe choice of languages taught in schools andadult learning programmes are sensitive issues.The basic features of a language influence theways in which students learn. Different skills arerequired to master different script systems(alphabets vs ideograms, for instance). The oraland written forms of a language may servedistinct purposes. Modern standard Arabic, forexample, is used by many countries as thenational or official language, but differs from thediverse forms of spoken Arabic. Lack ofcorrespondence between the spoken and writtenlanguages can pose a particular problem forlearners.

Initial education in the mother tongue iswidely recognized to be positive for a child’scognitive development. Learning how to readand write in a maternal language facilitatesaccess to literacy in other languages. Languagediversity need not be a barrier to literacyacquisition: in Papua New Guinea, where over800 languages are spoken, primary pupils starteducation in their mother tongue and graduallyshift to English.

The use of vernaculars in adult programmesis pedagogically sound, encourages communitymobilization and social development, andprovides for political voice. Using only the locallanguage as a learning medium, however, canbe a barrier to broader participation in acountry’s social, economic and political life.Adult learners themselves often express a

demand for literacy in a regional and/or nationallanguage. In the United Republic of Tanzania, literacyprogrammes in Swahili proved far more popular thanones in local languages.

Balancing these factors is not easy. The key featuresof an inclusive multilingual policy should be based on:

studies of the linguistic and socio-linguistic situation,including attitudes of communities towards thelanguages they use and towards official languages;consultations with local communities as an input tolearning and to the governance of adult programmes;locally written and produced teaching materials;the addition of second (and third) languages that takeaccount of learners’ competence and knowledge.

The extra cost of training teachers and developingmaterials in multiple languages must be weighedagainst the inefficiency of teaching in languages thatlearners do not understand.

6. Literate environments: nurturing learningPrinted and visual materials in households,neighbourhoods, schools, workplaces and thecommunity encourages individuals to become literateand to integrate their literacy skills in their everydaylives. Comparative studies of educational achievementand literacy proficiency show that the quantity and useof literacy resources matter. A recent study in thirty-fivecountries found that exposure to home-based literacyactivities was positively related to Grade 4 readingachievement. The International Adult Learning Surveyfound that the extent to which respondents read booksand newspapers, visited public libraries and watchedtelevision was significantly associated with literacyproficiency in some twenty OECD countries.

While research clearly shows that home and schoolliteracy environments significantly contribute to readingand language achievement, many pupils grow up inimpoverished literacy environments, lacking a bareminimum of written material. According to the SouthernAfrican Consortium on Monitoring Educational Quality,at least 70% of students reported having fewer than tenbooks in their homes. In all but four countries, only 20%to 40% of the schools had libraries. Many Grade 6 pupilsreported that their classrooms had no books at all. Inremote communities of Asia, Latin America and Africa,the circulation of newspapers, books and magazines isoften severely limited.

Policies related to book publishing, the media andaccess to information affect the literate environmentand are intricately linked to the building of literatesocieties. Many countries harness the potential of theprint and broadcast media to promote literacy. Quite a few have developed special publications aimed atindividuals with minimal skills and at the expansion of literacy in local languages. Others have used radioand television in conjunction with literacy programmesand initiated listening groups to maximize the impact of specialized broadcasts.

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Financing literacy: the costs of scaling up

People in low-income countries have very limited abilityto pay for educational activities. The scaling up of adultliteracy programmes requires, first, a coordinatednational financing strategy. Budgetary allocations toliteracy must increase, and not at the expense ofinvestment in the quality of schooling. Investing in thewider literacy environment to stimulate the productionof materials suitable for new readers is also important.Second, mechanisms should be developed to mobilizelocal resources, taking care to ensure that no one inthe community is ever barred from literacyprogrammes because of cost. Third, governments andnational NGOs can form partnerships with the privatesector, donor agencies and international NGOs.

Although reliable data on funding for youth andadult literacy are scarce, evidence suggests that thelevel is very low in most developing countries, both inthe aggregate and in terms of the priority given literacyin national and education sector budgets. In manycountries, literacy programmes represent just 1% ofthe total national education budget. Calculating overallsupport is difficult, since governments may spreadfunds over several ministries and programmes may berun by NGOs, employers and donors.

Discussion of long-term financing must first assesssome of the basic cost parameters for good-qualityliteracy programmes. These include start-up costs,training, development and printing of learningmaterials, payment of literacy educators and operatingcosts. All are difficult to standardize. For a recentsample of twenty-nine literacy programmes, theaverage cost per learner came to US$47 in sub-Saharan Africa, US$30 in Asia and US$61 in LatinAmerica. The averages per ‘successful’ learner – onehaving completed the programme – were, respectively,US$68, US$32 and US$83. In Senegal’s literacy andpoverty alleviation programme, the unit cost for oneadult learner is US$50 – broadly equivalent to the costof one year of primary schooling.

Policy-makers need to come up with baselinefigures for significantly expanding nationalprogrammes. The key consideration is salary andtraining costs for literacy educators. Relying onvolunteers is not a long-term solution. TheGCE/ActionAid study recommends that literacyeducators should be paid at least the equivalent of theminimum primary school teacher’s pay, for all hoursworked. This benchmark raises difficult questions,as governments are already under pressure to payprimary school teachers a decent wage. A minimumperiod of training is also required: the same studyrecommends that facilitators should receive at leastfourteen days of initial training and regular refreshersessions. Such costs represent a major investment,one that will have to be met not just by governments

but also by the private sector and donors. Production of learning materials is a third important cost, whichvaries considerably depending on the pedagogy used.The extent to which government and other actors areprepared to invest in free or subsidized newspapers,local and national language editions of materials andthe provision of travelling libraries also deservesconsideration. Other items include management andother overhead, as well as monitoring and evaluation,which are all too rare in literacy programmes.

Preliminary, broad-brush work on the magnitudeof additional costs that might be incurred if majorprogress is to be made towards the Dakar literacy goalwas commissioned for this Report. It suggests thatUS$26 billion is required over the 13 years to 2015 toenable more than 550 million people (nearly half inSouth and West Asia) to complete a literacyprogramme of 400 hours. The financial challenge isgreatest in South and West Asia, while relative costsare highest in the Arab States. This work offers anindicative framework to stimulate policy debate incountries, where assumptions can be varied accordingto context.8 The figures and conclusions involved shouldbe read with caution, since the data are limited andmany fundamental assumptions are made. The rangeof estimates is broad – between US$10 billion andUS$50 billion over the next ten years. Because thiswork calculates costs since 2002, at least US$2.5 billiona year would likely now be needed, a tall order for bothcountries and the international community.

Most governments need to be much more active inresearching, financing, expanding and coordinatingliteracy policy and practice through schools, youth andadult literacy programmes and the broaderenvironment. Benchmarks developed by the GCE andActionAid can stimulate debate on literacy. They includeattention to governance, evaluation, educators,pedagogy and financing, all discussed above. No matterwhat approach is chosen, political commitment is theobligatory pre-condition for meeting the ambitioustargets that many governments have set for theircountries. In turn, it will rely on technical capacity,adequate financing and international support,discussed below.

8. A dynamic presentation of the study, available on the EFA Global MonitoringReport website from 9 November 2005, will let users alter the costingassumptions for individual countries on a spreadsheet and develop tailoredestimates of the costs of achieving the Dakar literacy goal.

US$26 billion is required to 2015 to enable more than 550 millionpeople to complete a literacyprogramme of 400 hours