[AAACE-NLA] 22 OECD countries recognize the need for adult literacy

[David Rosen]

Colleagues,

In a recent Guardian (U.K.) article, When modern life just doesn't  
add up,  about the OECD What Works Conference on formative assessment  
there are several interesting observations and quotes:

"The consensus among the world's richest countries is of a need to do  
something about a shared problem. 'There is no doubt about the  
importance of this subject,' says [Tom] Schuller, for whom the  
conference was his final engagement as head of Ceri before coming to  
England to take up a post with the National Institute of Adult  
Continuing Education (Niace). "Countries genuinely are concerned  
about the educational levels in their workforces.' '

"Despite the enthusiasm with which speakers recounted campaigns and  
programmes to address adult illiteracy, there seemed an unspoken  
understanding among the audience that good intentions are not always  
matched by government cash."

" 'Adult language, literacy and numeracy provision has traditionally  
been set apart from mainstream education at the compulsory and  
university levels and ... largely independent of policy oversight,'  
observed the book that was the conference's central text, Teaching,  
Learning and Assessment for Adults: Improving Foundation Skills. This  
boils down the strategies and methods that appear to work best across  
the world."

"This enthusiasm, plus a corporatist approach, has resulted in large  
swaths of the Danish workforce accepting financial help with adult  
education as part of wage agreements. Under collective agreements  
between employers and unions, 'it was agreed that, instead of just  
raising salaries, substantial sums of money would be set aside for  
education purposes', said [Jorn] Skovsgaard. Love of lifelong  
learning is clearly a big thing in Scandinavia. A Swedish participant  
said there are as many adults in education in Sweden as there are  
children in the school system."

"The conference buzzphrase was 'formative assessment'. Sometimes  
referred to as assessment for, rather than of, learning, this means  
students regularly assess themselves and one another, and teaching  
and learning tasks are modified as a result. The assumption, says the  
key conference text, is 'that each learner can succeed'. Given the  
diversity of people needing help with literacy and numeracy, this  
approach is deemed best for adult basic skills."

"One simple notion was mentioned by John Comings, director of the  
National Centre for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy at the  
Harvard Graduate School of Education. One US study, he said, looked  
at the effect of explaining to adults, at the start of any programme,  
what literacy is and what it is used for.

'It improves retention and outcome dramatically,' says Comings. 'Just  
putting a map into their heads of where they are going appears to be  
very important for maintaining their motivation to learn and also  
their achievement.' "

The full article will be found at
http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,2257742,00.html


David Rosen
DJRosen at theworld.com



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