adult literacy

Addressing Adult Literacy: “A Key Step to Ensuring That All Young People Become Literate”

/ The Old Crank

From Reaching Full Literacy in Pakistan by 2025, a report commissioned by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Party Chairman Imran Khan released this week:

While it is tempting to argue that the priority is to ensure that no child leaving primary education is illiterate, the evidence from both Pakistan and elsewhere is that adult illiteracy has a direct effect on the performance of the young. In effect, addressing adult illiteracy is a key step to ensuring that all young people become literate, especially as adult illiteracy is one reason why children drop out of school early. (my emphasis)

They Write Letters

/ The Old Crank

GED Testing Service LetterThe GED Testing Service released a letter yesterday in response to a recent, widely circulated Associated Press story about the changes coming to the GED exam in 2014. I’ve written a lot about the controversy over the new exam—you can search the archives if you are interested.

The letter asks the adult education community to be “more courageous” when making decisions about the new test, “because that is what it will take to ensure [adult learners] are prepared for the future.”

It goes on to say that the alternative exams from McGraw Hill and ETS now competing with the GED in the high school equivalency testing market fail to measure college and career readiness, and that the revamped GED will be the only test “truly capable of measuring depth of knowledge and the skills that employers and colleges now expect.” Choosing one of the competing assessments “will just leave your adult learners behind.”

Other highlights:

  • “We believe adults are capable of acquiring the skills necessary to compete, including demonstrating basic technology skills and college and career readiness in 2014 and beyond.”
  • “It’s important that we have substantive conversations about all the issues and changes that we need to make, instead of settling for a cheaper, less effective test. It’s past time that the media and policymakers acknowledge the role that your staff and adult educators play in economic development in your jurisdiction and that you need resources to do the job right.”

So there you have it: those state officials who have chosen one of the alternative assessments are gutless cheapskates who don’t think their learners can actually acquire  the skills to compete. Let the substantive discussion begin!

Rising Political Figure in Pakistan Says Illiteracy Is a “National Emergency”

/ The Old Crank

According to Pakistan’s English-language newspaper The Nation, Imran Khan, the leader of a rising political party in Pakistan, plans to treat the country’s dismal literacy rates as “a national emergency” if his party comes to power.

Kahn is proposing “a twin track approach” that will expand primary education to universal access while simultaneously “tackl[ing] the adult illiteracy problem with all available resources.”

In a blog post published by The News Tribune, Kahn calls literacy “a fundamental human right” that is “essential to social and human development.” and explains why it is necessary to address both adult and children’s literacy in order to raise Pakistan’s overall literacy rate:

Tackling illiteracy starts with achieving universal primary education so that Pakistan’s 25 million children, who at present do not go to school, will have an opportunity for free, accessible, excellent primary education in a system that is uniform throughout the country.  Educational institutions will be devolved to the town level with management at district and sub-district levels.  Curriculums will be improved, teacher training radically increased and a new school building program will be initiated nationwide.

At the same time, I will create a special task force to pursue reaching full literacy in Pakistan by 2025, with a state sponsored mass literacy campaign for adults, making the best use of available resources. This will be an organised campaign using private and public sector resources, with major public media input and with programmes planned with relevance to poor and rural communities.

Kahn also outlines the economic case for improving his country’s literacy rate:

I have vowed to increase the education budget from 2.1% to 5% of the GDP. Illiteracy in Pakistan is costing an estimated $5.86 billion or 1.2% of GDP. The one-off investment in a successful literacy campaign will have diminishing costs and increasing returns over ten years, increasing the country’s GDP and lifting the country out of its current cycle of poverty, discord and violence.

Adult Education in the President’s Proposed FY 2014 Budget

/ The Old Crank

Just had time to take a quick look. More detail (lots more detail, in fact) here.

The short version: The Adult Basic and Literacy Education State Grant program under Title II of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) was level funded once again at $594 million (including the usual $74.7 million set-aside for English Literacy/Civics Education. However, the President does propose a $3 million increase for Adult Education National Leadership Activities. This proposed increase would be used to “support the expansion of the Department’s reentry education model demonstration initiative” and “help develop evidence of effectiveness in a variety of institutional contexts and build on the Department’s recent Promoting Reentry Success through Continuity of Educational Opportunities competition.”

Of course, there are other federal programs of interest to adult education programs. The only one I’ve had a chance to look at so far is the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS). The President’s budget requests $1.061 billion for the CNCS and its programs, an increase of $12.2 million over the 2012 funding level.