August 28, 2007

Toward a Global Network of Adult Literacy Education in Six Industrialized
Nations

Tom Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education

One of several recent international surveys that have examined adult
language, literacy, and numeracy (LLN) education in Australia, Canada,
Ireland, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and the United States is a report by
McKenna & Fitzpatrick (2004). In this work it was noted that three of the
nations have unitary governments (Ireland, New Zealand, United Kingdom) in
which policies, funding, and educational practice are directed from a
central, national government. The other three nations studied (Australia,
Canada, United States) have federated governments in which a central
government and a number of separate states or provinces share
responsibility for policies, funding, and practices regarding adult LLN
provision.

As one of these three federated nations, the United States has long had an
Adult Education and Literacy System (AELS) that is jointly funded by
federal and state governments and operates according to the provisions of a
national law. This law, the Adult Education Act of 1966, continues today as
the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, Title 2, Adult Education and Family
Literacy Act. For over 40 years now, this adult education system has
provided language, literacy, and numeracy instruction for adults 16 years
of age or older, who are not in school and have not received a secondary
(high) school diploma or its substitute in the form of a General
Educational Development (GED) certificate. This is the longest operating,
federally legislated, nationally organized, and coherently operating adult
LLN system among any of the six nations studied by McKenna & Fitzpatrick
(2004).

Today the AELS has some two to three million adult enrollees annually, and
over its 40 year history over 100 million enrollments have been recorded.
This remarkable achievement has been documented by an accountability system
in which the states report data to the federal government which then
aggregates the data on federal and state funding, enrollments, types of
education (adult basic education (ABE), adult secondary education (ASE), or
English as a second language (ESL) education),  types of personnel
(part-time employed, full-time employed, voluntary), and, at times, types
of organizations providing the AELS services (e.g., adult high schools,
community colleges, community based organizations, etc.).

Since 2000, the AELS has operated with a National Reporting System that
includes data on funding, enrollments, retention, and completion of
programs. Additionally it includes information on progression in learning
upward through six levels of achievement in ABE, ASE, and ESL as indicated
by performance on standardized tests or other assessments, such as
portfolios scored with rubrics. It also includes data on how many adults
who are seeking a secondary education diploma or GED achieve this goal, how
many of those seeking employment go on to become employed, how many seeking
transition to secondary training or education actually complete such a
transition, and other data reported by the states.

This long-lasting AELS is supplemented in the United States by a number of
other organizations such as libraries, community based, charitable
organizations, and education providers working under other special
government programs of health, human resources development,
welfare-to-work, national defense, and early childhood education which
includes some adult literacy education. National data on how many of such
organizations exist, how many adults they serve, and outcomes achieved are
not available to me, if they exist at all. Still, I venture an educated
estimate that there may be another one million or so adults served in these
various programs.

Similarly, in the other six nations studied by McKenna & Fitzpatrick (2004)
there are difficulties in acquiring complete data on adult LLN provision
across a wide variety of organizations with either governmental or
non-governmental  sponsorship.  But there has been for the last decade or
so a growing interest in these industrialized nations in developing more
stable, coherent systems of adult literacy provision.


>From various ongoing activities in these six nations, new policies and new

approaches to adult LLN education have been forthcoming, with improved
accountability systems that hold the promise of offering substantial
evidence that the provision of LLN for adults is a valuable addition to
existing primary, secondary, and tertiary education systems.

Over100 million adults in these six nations have been declared to be at risk
for low literacy. In all six nations, each year hundreds of thousands of
young adults continue to leave the childhood school systems with poor
literacy. For these millions of adults, a solid educational LLN system will
offer the opportunities for continued growth and development, not only for
themselves, but also for their children and their communities.

The time for well-funded, world-class education systems for adult LLN
provision is upon us. Working together, as various reports indicates is
happening, these six industrialized nations form a global network connected
by the virtual reality of the world wide web. Through the continuation and
expansion of this work, it may be possible to transform the visions of such
national education systems from virtual into substantial realities.

Reference

McKenna, R. & Fitzpatrick, L. (2004).  Building sustainable adult literacy
policy and provision In Australia: A review of international policy and
programs.
http://www.ncver.edu.au


Thomas G. Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education
2062 Valley View Blvd.
El Cajon, CA 92019-2059
Tel/fax: (619) 444-9133
Email: tsticht at aznet.net