New Era

Many of you may recall that Adult Learners' Week commenced in the United Kingdom in 1992 to promote and encourage Lifelong Learning. In November 1999, UNESCO's General Conference approved the International Adult Learners' Week with the aim to bridge the activities during the National Adult Learners' Week in order to learn from the experiences of other countries, to share the celebration with people in other contexts and to amplify the cooperation between agencies active in the promotion of adult learning at international level.

Since then, many countries, including Namibia started organizing or preparing learning festivals annually, the first week of September each year.

Adult Learners' Week and International Literacy Day are used as mobilization initiatives in many countries, including Namibia. On behalf of the Ministry of Education, I am proud to inform the Namibians that:

"¢ Every year, the first week of September (1-8 September) we celebrate our success and try to rekindle our passion and love of learning.
"¢ We reflect on challenges that face our sector and to recognize that by working together we can strive for Quality Literacy for Improved Livelihood.
"¢ The first week of September is put aside every year to encourage one another to further our education and to celebrate the achievements of those who have already taken up the challenge of lifelong learning.

The country theme for this year for Adult Learners' Week "LITERACY FOR COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN POVERTY REDUCTION", echoes the call of United Nations Literacy Decade (2003-2012) and highlights how adult education enables people to recognize their full potential and to participate in the shaping up of an equitable and democratic society.

What is quality literacy?

The concept or the phrase Quality Literacy refers to the teaching and learning materials used in adult basic education programmes. The term adult basic education is commonly used to mean not literacy and numeracy skills acquisition but also the acquisition of social and life skills, and that is the scope that the Quality Literacy almost always reflects across the world, especially in the developing countries. Such programmes are being contextualized in Namibia's National Literacy Programme.

Quality defined

Quality has been defined by many theorists. Some definitions are given below:

"¢ Fitness for use (Juran)
"¢ Compliance with specified requirements (Crosby)
"¢ Freedom from defects, imperfections or contamination
"¢ Degree of excellence
"¢ Customer satisfaction
"¢ Delighting customers
"¢ The totality of characteristics of an entity that bear on its ability to satisfy stated and implied needs (ISO 8402:1994)

The concept of quality underlying ISO 9000 is meeting customers' requirements. A product or service, therefore, has quality when it satisfies the user's needs, both stated and implied.

Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing are the four language skills which are necessary for the acquisition of proficiency in any language. The illiterate adults who are the clientele of Total Literacy Campaigns have been already carrying out the two language functions viz. listening and speaking. The literacy programme tries to introduce the illiterate adults into the world of written culture i.e. reading and writing.

Reading is a key to success. As our culture becomes more complex, reading plays an increasing role in satisfying ones' desires and interests. For a child, reading may be for the development of out of school interests. For an adult it may be for the enjoyment of leisure time or cater to the vocational interests.

Effective reading is the most important avenue to effective learning. Reading is an interpretation of graphic symbols and can be perceived as a two-fold process: requiring the Identification of symbols and association of appropriate meaning with them. Reading as a complex process requires very specialized skills on part of the reader. Success in any educational attempt requires successful reading. Experience at the school level shows that, those who fail in school usually failed in reading. Glordano Bruno has rightly said that "If the first button of a man's shirt is wrongly put, all the rest will be misplaced. Reading is the first button in the garment of Education".

International Literacy Day - 8 September 2008

This year we are ending our Adult Learners' Week with the celebration of International Literacy Day when we remember those who are struggling to obtain the basic educational tools that are the first steps on the pathway to lifelong learning. This year, International Literacy Day is placing a special focus on the vital relationship between literacy, empowerment, participation and poverty reduction, which is also the thematic emphasis of the 2007-2008 biennium of the United Nations Literacy Decade. This relationship brings benefits to all age groups: early childhood, school children, adolescents and adults

What is Lifelong Learning really about?

"¢ Lifelong Learning is about development
"¢ Development is about welfare
"¢ Welfare is about quality of life
"¢ Quality of life is about functionality in the society you live in
"¢ And functionality is about:
"¢ The ability to cope with life
"¢ To read and write and
"¢ To cope with questions like health and consumerism
"¢ To be able to learn and live with other cultures
"¢ And it is about equal access to learning
"¢ And learning on your own conditions

Let us take up the challenge to bring Namibia closer to its Vision 2030 goals.

* Martin Sinvula Kasokonya is Senior Education Officer: Subdivision: Research, Planning and Programme Development, Ministry of Education: Directorate of Adult Education.

Back to Top