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Poor return on investment? Why are literacy programmes failing to reach the poor?

Has the Education for All debate overshadowed literacy? What is the relationship between literacy and poverty? Should literacy programmes be carried out for their own sake or as part of a wider livelihood programme? What are the impacts and trade-offs between literacy and formal education? What are effective entry points for literacy programmes? How can success be measured?

These challenges were addressed by the 'Literacy for Livelihoods' conference held in Nepal in 2000. Organised by the UK's Department for International Development (DFID), it brought together development experts from a range of disciplines (including health, education, livelihoods, social development and economics ) to explore why returns on donor support for literacy programmes in Asia have been so limited. Suggesting that literacy should be incorporated within a sustainable livelihoods framework, the conference report sets out future directions for DFID strategies, institutional arrangements and knowledge management.

Literacy programmes have so far had limited impact due to high dropout and low enrolment and completion rates. They have failed to reach the poorest of the poor – those unable to attend primary school for economic and social reasons have also been excluded from literacy classes. Governments who manipulate data to claim they are on track to ‘eliminating’ illiteracy are hiding the fact that a billion people – the majority of whom are women – are still illiterate.

Schemes have relied upon a narrow vision of literacy, failing to capture the wider ranges of literacy practices and processes with which people engage in daily life. Frequently, little thought is given to the appropriate language for learning as governments prioritise national or dominant languages.

Evidence shows that:

Literacy is an effective means of empowering people to reduce their poverty: it is a skill that reduces fears of being lost, cheated or manipulated by others.
Participants in literacy programmes are more likely to keep their children in school, positively change health and nutritional practices, use contraception and develop micro-entrepreneurial skills.
Group learning activities such as publishing of ‘wall newspapers’ by community groups can introduce more non-literate people to textual literacy.

DFID argues that the links between illiteracy and social exclusion can be broken. Becoming literate has significance beyond the actual acquisition and use of reading, writing and numeracy skills. Literacy and wider information and communication strategies are not only education issues but need to be embedded within wider approaches to development.

The report calls for:

approaches which acknowledge the real state of literacy attained, based on learners’ progress and informed by participative needs analysis that draws out what people believe they need in order to improve their livelihoods
more extensive context-specific needs analysis and an end to ‘one-size-fits-all’ literacy schemes with their characteristic generalised literacy primers and readers
exploring the diversity of relevant entry points to meet the specific needs of such groups as working children, migrant workers, forest dwellers or the newly urbanised who have missed out on conventional programmes
greater recognition of the existing knowledge and understanding that adults learn in different ways from children
revised evaluation systems using qualitative as well as quantitative data on impact using appropriate indicators for literacy and its contribution to livelihoods
supportive, adequately-funded institutional bases which overcome problems of lack of co-ordination and use opportunities provided by decentralisation.

Source(s):
‘Report on literacy for livelihoods: DFID Conference, Nepal’, December 2000 Full document.
'Improving Livelihoods for the Poor: The Role of Literacy', A Background Briefing Paper-DFID, March 2002

Funded by: Department for International Development, UK

id21 Research Highlight: 2 December 2003

Further Information:
Carew Treffgarne
DFID
1 Palace Street
London SW1E 5HE
UK

Tel: +44 (0) 207 023 0658
Contact the contributor: c-treffgarne@dfid.gov.uk

Department for International Development (DFID), UK

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