Dear ….

The Australian Council for Adult Literacy (ACAL) is writing to each of the leaders of the key national political parties to seek their position and commitment to lifelong learning and education for all Australians. This is critical to our organisation which is the national peak body of adult literacy and numeracy professionals composed of teachers, researchers, teacher educators, program managers as well as education providers. We aim to -

  • provide leadership in Australian debate on adult literacy and numeracy practices and policy;
  • build understanding of adult literacy and numeracy issues;
  • advocate on behalf of equitable adult literacy and numeracy provision for all Australians;
  • build links between people, organisations and systems - the participants and stakeholders in the adult literacy and numeracy field; and
  • work with other organisations on issues of mutual concern.

Literacy and numeracy consistently feature strongly in debates and policies in school education; however, adult literacy and numeracy as an underpinning thread in lifelong and lifewide learning and education is not afforded the same attention. This is a matter of grave concern. We refer to adult literacy and numeracy education as Adult Basic Education because literacy and numeracy education is a basic human right, recognised by UNESCO[1], since literacy and numeracy are critical resources for negotiating the world for all of us throughout our lives.

We outline below our position on issues that we believe are essential for developing a dynamic, equitable and sustainable policy of lifelong learning and education for all members of the Australian community:

  1. enabling all Australians to access low cost public provision of adult literacy and numeracy education as a basic right;
  2. supporting affordable education and training for a high quality professional workforce of adult literacy and numeracy educators;
  3. recognising and valuing adults’ literacy and numeracy learning for the range of benefits it affords, including but not exclusively, economic benefits; and
  4. engaging in genuine, respectful consultations with a wide range of community stakeholders to develop a national policy, informed by educational principles, on lifelong and lifewide learning and education in which adult basic education is a critical part.

We elaborate on our rationale of the position we take in the rest of this document. We believe that the community deserves a commitment to lifelong and lifewide learning and education, and adult basic education in particular, as a fundamental social and educational priority from all major political parties.

We invite you to respond in some detail to the policy position we have outlined. If you would like to discuss any of these policy points and explore them further,ACAL representatives would be very happy to meet with you.

Yours sincerely,

Jenni Anderson
President
Australian Council for Adult Literacy

e /
a / 53 Canning St LAUNCESTON, TAS, 7250
t / 03 6341 8907
m / 0419 395 309

17 December 2018

ACAL’s position

Adult Basic Education is essential for developing a dynamic, equitable and sustainable policy of lifelong learning and education for all members of the Australian community. Thus policies and policy processes supporting the following objectives are needed:

  1. enable Australians to access low cost public provision of adult literacy and numeracy education as a basic right;
  2. support affordable education and training for a high quality professional workforce of adult literacy and numeracy educators;
  3. recognise and value adults’ literacy and numeracy learning for the range of benefits it affords, including but not exclusively, economic benefits; and
  4. engage in genuine, respectful consultations with a wide range of community stakeholders to develop a national policy, informed by educational principles, on lifelong and lifewide learning and education in which adult basic education is a critical part.

Rationale

Adult Basic Education as a foundation for effective citizenship

Literacy and numeracy are key resources not only for building academic knowledge in schools and universities, but also for effective participation as citizens in the community and in the workplace. Moreover, literacy and numeracy practices that are necessary in our lives are constantly changing. It is self-evident then that adults who have not had the chance to develop literacy, numeracy and, in particular, digital forms of literacy and numeracy, are at a high risk of being socially excluded. This is borne out in Australia’s results in the OECD Survey of Adult Skills[2] (the first initiative of OECD’s Programme of International Assessment of Adult Competencies [PIAAC]). The Survey found that on average, Australian adults performed above or at about OECD average on the literacy and numeracy items of the survey, and that there was a good match between the participants’ literacy levels and the corresponding demands in their work. However, a serious result that was evident in the same Survey was that that 12.6% and 20.1% performed at level 1 or below in literacy and numeracy, respectively (OECD 2013:3). Moreover, the Survey found that:

In Australia, individuals proficient in literacy at or below Level 1 have much greater chances, relative to those of adults with Level 4/5 proficiency in literacy, of distrusting others, believing they have little impact on the political process, not participating in volunteer activities and reporting poor health. In the case of volunteer activities, Australian adults scoring at or below Level 1 in literacy have more than three times the chance of those with a high level of literacy of reporting non-participation. (OECD 2013:10)

Large scale population surveys such as this are extremely limited in what they are able to measure in terms of the actual literacy and numeracy skills respondents are able demonstrate in their everyday lives.Nevertheless, the fact that a significant proportion of the representative sample of the Australian population has been assessed as having lower levels of literacy and numeracy levels and these groups are expressing low levels of trust of others, marginalisation from the social and political life of the community, and poor health shouldbeof great concern to politicians at all levels of government.

The multiple benefits of Adult Basic Education

While school literacy and numeracy are discussed as an issue of broad social interest, when adult literacy and numeracy has been discussed in political arenas in Australia,the discussion has been dominated by economic discourses about the impact of workers’ literacy and numeracy levels on economic productivity (Pancini 2012, Yasukawa & Black 2016).

ACAL absolutely acknowledges the societal and individual economic impact of high levels of literacy and numeracy and the importance of policies that support literacy and numeracy development of the Australian workforce. However, what is less widely discussed and acknowledged is the link between increased literacy and numeracy learning and improved social and identity capital, both of which interact with,and are necessary for, the human capital outcomes of interest among industry groups[3].

Recent national policy initiatives on adult literacy and numeracy[4], provide scant direction, and consequently support, for literacy and numeracy learning as a lifelong and lifewidelearning endeavour linked critically with social capital and identity capital outcomes. Adult basic education as a foundation for gaining self-esteem and self-confidence to lead an independent lifeis powerfully illustrated in many community-based adult learning sites (see for example Marston & Johnson-Abdelmalik 2015).Recent initiatives in Australian Indigenouscommunities have also shown benefits in community development and mobilisation of community members in learning (Boughton et al 2013).

Towards an inter-governmental agreement on Adult Basic Education funding

ACAL acknowledges the benefits that can be afforded by labour market programs such as the Skills for Education and Employment (SEE) funded by the Commonwealth Government. However, there is a wider need for community based programs that afford direct benefits for the learners and local community needs and contexts that are not linked to a ‘mutual obligation’ through social welfare payments.In the past, there was much wider access to, and participation in, free public provision of Adult Basic Education classes; in these classes participants learned to set personal learning goals, developed the skills to interact with fellow learners with confidence, accumulated literacy and numeracy skills through developing knowledge and understanding about their community and topical issues, gained knowledge and skills to help their own children with their school work, and/or developed the skills to learn and the literacy and numeracy to pursue further education and training – without the assessment pressures linked to reporting and receipt of welfare benefits. Provision of programs with outcomes such as these should be freely and widely accessible. We are not concerned whether these are federally or state funded; however, we believe there should be national policy that ensures there is funding for such programs, either through the federal jurisdiction or the states’ and territories’ jurisdictions. An inter-governmental agreement that formalises the funding arrangement would be a positive statement of commitment by all jurisdictions.

Adult basic education as a specialist professional educational practice

As well as student concerns, we are also concerned to ensure that the teachers of adult literacy and numeracy are appropriately skilled and knowledgeable. Highly skilled and educated teachers are able to exercise professional judgement to negotiate the diverse needs and aspirations of learners to enable each learner to meet their learning goals while also developing a sense of social cohesion that affirms and builds on the strengths brought by the individual learners. Teaching in adult basic education requires a highly educated and professional teaching workforce of practitioners who have developed specialist skills and knowledge of adult learning, and who can avoid reinforcing the ‘deficit’ discourse surrounding literacy that many adult basic education learners have experienced (Rogers 2006). This meansCommonwealth-supported postgraduate places for Adult Basic Education teaching programs should be made available in universities as they are for secondary school teaching programs. This would also ensure that the teaching workforce in Adult Basic Education is continually renewed by graduate teachers bringing with them current research-informed practices to their teaching contexts.

In conclusion

Affordable and accessible Adult Basic Education programs delivered by professionally qualified adult educators afford multiple benefits for individuals, their community and the Australian society. It is a valuable public investment with high levels of returns for all Australians.

References

Boughton, B., Chee, D. A., Beetson, J., Durnan, D., &LeBlanch, J. C. (2013). An Aboriginal adult literacy campaign pilot study in Australia using Yes I can.Literacy and Numeracy Studies,21(1).

Marston, G., & Johnson-Abdelmalik, J. (2015). “He was learning to read, but he wasn’t learning to live”: Socially inclusive learning in a community setting.Literacy and Numeracy Studies,23(1).

OECD. (2013). Australia– Country Note –Survey of Adult Skills first results. Retrieved

Pancini, G. (2012). Deconstructing the literacy crisis.Fine Print,35(3), 3-40.

Rogers, A. (2006). Escaping the slums or changing the slums? Lifelong learning and social transformation 1.International Journal of Lifelong Education,25(2), 125-137.

Yasukawa, K., & Black, S. (2016). Policy Making at a Distance. InK. Yasukawa & S. Black (Eds.) Beyond Economic Interests: Critical perspectives in adult literacy and numeracy in a globalising world.(pp. 19-39). SensePublishers.

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[1]

[2] The Survey of Adult Skills was OECD’s first initiative in the Programme of International Assessment of Adult Skills (PIAAC). The survey assessed adults’ proficiencies in the three domains of Literacy, Numeracy and Problem Solving in Technology-rich Environments. In addition to these proficiencies, survey participants were asked to respond to a range of questions in the Background Questionnaire. Australia was one of 24 countries that participated in the first wave of the Survey conducted in 2010-2012. A total of 7430 Australian adults aged between 16 and 65 were surveyed.

[3] See for example the work of Côté, J. E. (2005). Identity capital, social capital and the wider benefits of learning: generating resources facilitative of social cohesion.London review of education,3(3), 221-237, and Schuller, T., Hammond, C., Preston, J., Brassett-Grundy, A., & Bynner, J. (2004).The benefits of learning: The impact of education on health, family life and social capital. Routledge, for further discussion on identity capital and social capital.

[4] In 2012, the National Foundation Skills Strategy (NFSS) was released, but with no overarching educational policy or budget. Other initiatives include the introduction of a Foundation Skills Training Package which contains competencies that are stated solely in terms of work-related outcomes, and somewhat ironically, the dismantling of the Workplace English Language and Literacy programme for supporting workplace literacy and numeracy education and training.