Adult Basic Education and Training aims to ”break the back of illiteracy among adults in five years”.
MINISTER of Education Kader Asmal recently announced that he will ”break the back of illiteracy among adults in five years”. Twelve-and-a-half million South African adults are functionally illiterate, according to a survey by the University of Natal’s Centre for Adult Education. Asmal’s commitment has been met with praise from those involved in Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET), but many are asking if he will be putting money where his mouth is.
Standards have already been established to ensure quality is maintained in the system. It is hoped that this programme will provide a framework for adult learning and mobilise both business and communities in the fight against illiteracy.
The programme includes a curriculum for ABET levels 1 through 5. The unit standards for levels 1 to 4 are currently in use, but unit standards for level 5 (which is roughly equivalent to grade 9) are not available yet. Following ABET level 5 learners can study for matric within the National Qualifications Framework. The system is academically advanced and formally examined, but questions arise over its sustained implementation, and there are problems as to whether learners are ultimately given access to tertiary training and education.
Adult learners come in varying degrees of ability and need to be assessed and assigned to a level of ABET training. At entry point some courses involve mother tongue instruction for levels 1 and 2, but tuition quickly moves to English as the target language and levels 1 to 4 in English must be covered before a learner can advance to matric instruction.
Following the election in 1994 much overseas funding for literacy initiatives dried up and many non-governmental organisations had to close their doors. Many companies developed ABET divisions as a result, not all of them credible. Many state-run projects are also suffering a lack of funding.
Government and business currently host the majority of learners in ABET courses. The Department of Education issues ABET tenders for which organisations apply. One such organisation is Project Literacy (Prolit), which has been operating since 1973.
Over time, says Richard McGillivray, operations director of Prolit, ”the notion of literacy has changed from a read-write to a skills-based approach. We are now concerned with what literacy education ultimately enables learners to do.” South Africans need to constantly re-evaluate and update skills if they are to remain internationally competitive.
Prolit trains approximately 3 000 to 5 000 learners a year, but ”spending has been sporadic”, explains McGillivray and this makes it hard to sustain initiatives. Sustainable funding is a constant problem ABET organisations face. Without the cash it will be impossible to prioritise ABET. This is why the government hopes to encourage the business sector to play an active part in training their staff. One way this is being implemented is through the Skills Development Act, which will require businesses to set aside money for training.
With a glut of jobless matriculants to choose from, business is unlikely to employ semi- and illiterate people in the future. The current corporate pool of learners is shrinking as they increasingly complete literacy courses. It won’t be long before those people who are in employment are all literate. But what about those who are unemployed?
Emphasis needs to shift to the rural sector and to providing life skills training. Community-based projects are an important provider of ABET in these areas. Only 1% of illiterate adults currently participate in literacy programmes.
”The notion of a willing learner is something of a myth,” says Cathy Kell of the Centre for Extra Mural Studies at the University of Cape Town. ”Many adults function within the communities and have status in spite of the fact that they are illiterate. If they do enter literacy classes it is usually for a specific purpose: to read the Bible or to pass a learner’s licence test.”
As a result there is a high drop-out rate from ABET programmes and the knowledge gained by learners is often lost if it is not sustained and built on. ”The challenge is to show people the value of learning,” says Kell.
— The Teacher/Mail & Guardian, February 23, 2000.
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