1
 

• 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

2
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

3
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.

4
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 .

5
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.

6
Convergence of literacy, adult edn.
lifelong learning
Adapted from R. M. Torres.
7
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.

8
Policy, Strategies and Participation

• Empirical observation suggests an Asian taxonomy
• Low basic education countries still struggling
  with childrens basic education less attention
  to ALE/LLL
• Advanced basic edn. countries good advance in
  childrens 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.

9
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.

10
Quality with Equity

• Overall, key elements of quality include
  curriculum, teaching-learning 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 societys challenges.

11
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

12
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.

13
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.

14
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 Sens 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.

15
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 re-commit 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.

16
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,
  citizens rights etc.
• - Community-owned multipurpose centre offering a
  need-based learning menu.

17
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.

18
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.

19
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 .
  

20
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

21

• 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.

22
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.
23

• 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.

24
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.