Evaluations of the Botswana National Literacy Program (BNLP) are reviewed, with emphasis on one internal and one external evaluation. The BNLP may be one of the most extensively evaluated national literacy programs ever conducted, with a program staff intensively trained in evaluation. One lesson of the repeated evaluations of the BNLP is that a…

This issue is devoted to discussions of world literacy and national programs which comparative studies indicate may be used as models for future UNESCO international campaigns. Individual articles explore economic incentives for literacy motivation, radio learning projects, media programs in Jamaica, literacy improvement in Somalia, and a…

The National Literacy Program in Namibia (NLPN) was launched in 1992 with the objective of achieving 80% national literacy among adults. Several evaluations, including an evaluation of system policy and performance, have been conducted. The methodology of these evaluations and the philosophy behind them are discussed. (SLD)

Advocating the literacy campaign as the most appropriate and adequate means for dealing with large-scale illiteracy, this book presents eight case studies of national campaigns as examples and illustrations of this approach. The book notes that mass literacy campaigns are not the exclusive province of any particular ideology, but are possible…

While the implementation of adult literacy promotion can best be handled at the national level, some important things can be done at the Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference (SADCC) level. A persuasive argument can be made on behalf of adult literacy in the SADCC development strategy. The people need to be educated in the…

Like many other newly independent countries of the Third World, Botswana, at independence in 1966, sought strictly utilitarian uses of education to train manpower for modernization. By the mid-1970s, however, the country had assumed a more humane development ideology, promising economic equality, democracy, and social justice. The policy of…

This report on the International Seminar on Campaigning for Literacy at Udaipur, India is divided into three main parts. Part 1 describes the context and background of the seminar, its specific objectives, and the organization and procedures of the seminar. Part 2 provides an overview of the seminar proceedings. The inaugural statements are…

The biological need to speak a language is joined today with the social necessity to read and write. Literacy may not be in the genes, but it has come to be central to the processes of cultural transformation in all societies--developed or developing. When viewed collectively within an evolutionary perspective, those who are literate are better…

This paper describes a system of built-in, or internal, evaluation used within the Botswana National Literacy Program (NLP). Launched in 1981 and targeted toward illiterate adults and youth aged 10 years and older, the program aims at eradicating illiteracy in Botswana by 1986. The built-in evaluation was implemented in 1983, using program…

In Malawi, adult literacy deserves immediate attention in order to promote health, family planning, and productivity. While policy commitment for adult literacy promotion has not been lacking, intensified action has been. In 1979 the government accepted the Unesco Mission Report to undertake a functional literacy program on the successful…

The document was prepared as part of a UNESCO contract to train 16 counterpart officials of UNESCO-sponsored literacy projects. Functional literacy was studied in three parts, all dealing with the total planning process. First was project planning. Literacy projects must consider national educational plans and be related to relevant economic…

Organizing adult education must be done within the context of development policy. Cultural filters should be used in considering theory and research knowledge. A sensitive use of cultural filters also applies to learning from practice. An assumption is that there should be interfacing and interlinking structures of primary education and adult…

Mass literacy, largely the product of the nineteenth century European industrial revolution, may be considered in three facets. First, its sociology: human relationships are different when individuals can refer to permanent, written records than when they rely on a person-to-person transferral of information. Literacy also makes possible more…

The manual is intended for training workshops on program and curriculum development for the post-literacy stages, since many countries successful in literacy work find that even greater challenges await them as erstwhile illiterates emerge from literacy classes as new literates. The emphasis is on programs and curricula to help new literates…

To provide an introduction to processes, issues, and problems of curriculum development in functional literacy and nonformal education, a monograph provides 11 chapters, each followed by exercises. The first chapter discusses curriculum development in relation to national development. The second chapter covers concepts of functional literacy and…